


To Feel in your Warmth

by Lionmate



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Dark, Dom/sub, Dominance, Evil, F/M, Lemon, Lemon Cakes, Porn With Plot, Psychological Horror, Rare Pairings, Sexual Tension, Submission, True Love, Two Shot, supernatural powers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 15:29:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 39,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11512242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lionmate/pseuds/Lionmate
Summary: In the aftermath of the downfall of the Phoenix King, the now Firelord Zuko takes it upon himself to make amends to the millions of people who had been affected by the 100-year-old war. One particular one brings forth a more interesting outcome than anyone could have foreseen, and thus, the young monarch finds himself in the middle of something truly bizarre. Read and understand that even a sad outcome can bloom into a story of love and chaos.





	1. Corporeal evil

Zuko sighed, this was the fifth time this cabbage vendor tried to sell him his product, didn't he understand what NO meant?

"But sir you look like you traveled a long way, a fresh cabbage is just what you need!" he held out one of those green disgusting things in front of him.

"And of course if you're planning on traveling even more, why not buy a dozen! You never know they could save your life!" the man pointed at his hooded face almost as if he was warning him.

"Look  _sir_ , I appreciate the concern but I don't need cabbages, I already packed enough supplies for my journey" Zuko condemned the moment he decided to walk by this street, but he could feel himself getting close to his destination.

"Oh but are you certain those supplies are reliable? I assure you my cabbages are the best in the whole Earth Kingdom" the vendor showed him his entire carriage full of them.

"I'm sure they are, but I don't like cabbages, now please if you'll excuse me, I have someone I need to meet" Zuko looked at him annoyed and frowning, then side stepped to continue walking ahead of him.

"Ok then but you're missing out on the best bargains around, 3 cabbages for the prize of one!" The cabbage vendor shouted at Zuko's retreating figure with an outstretched hand to his mouth. He too sighed in desperation, there went another one, he just couldn't seem to sell any this season.

Zuko walked onwards to where he knew a certain someone would most likely be, a tavern.

In the months following his father's demise and his coronation, Zuko had worked tirelessly to diplomatically connect links that were long severed with the rest of the world. He had made consensus with the Earth Kingdom Government and publicly apologized for his people and their siege of Ba Sing Sei. After that, he personally traveled to over twenty earth kingdom villages and made peace with them, as well as his past. He started with Kyoshi Island, paying off for the damages and doing the same to every single other village.

Then he moved on to the water tribes. It was hard to convince the Northern one that he was in charged now and that the war was over even when he requested Aang's presence to assure them. The stain of the attack years ago still barred clearly in the people's eyes there, and from what he heard from Sokka, the attack had caused the indirect death of their princess.

Zuko thought about what he did in those days, no he wasn't proud but at least he hadn't gone power lusted like Zhao did. The lesson was stained in his mind, people like Zhao always failed in the end.

The Southern water tribe was almost nonexistent, less than one hundred people populated it even when the men had returned. So to earn their trust, Zuko proposed to personally pay for the physical damages done with  _his_  own family wealth, Sokka and his father Hakoda became the architects of how their new city would look. It would take many years for it to return to what it once was over fifty years ago, but he was certain, with enough effort, in a few years the city would rise again.

As for the lost Air Nomads, there was no amount of money or consolation that would remedy their deaths, over a hundred years ago; they were already a lost civilization. Aang was the last one, and after he was gone, who would remain? Zuko asked him what he planned on doing about his future and laid down the possibilities, polygamy.

Needless to say, he was in outer shock, and Katara didn't take it nicely either. However, there was no other option and even his uncle agreed. So it was then, albeit begrudgingly, Aang agreed to the notion of having multiple girlfriends and marrying them in the future. The Air nomads would rise again, but they would all trace their roots to one person centuries from now.

The plan would remain confidential for Aang's safety. After all being the world's savior and the only remaining of his kind was news enough, no one needed to know he was looking.

Just like no one needed to know who Zuko really was right now, if he appeared in public right now as the Fire Lord he would never get to where he need to, a tavern was not a place for him in this new estate, he didn't need anyone bothering him with pleasantries, not to mention question him as to why he was headed that way.

Zuko had asked around some of the previous Earth Kingdom villages he'd at one point attacked in the past in search for the bounty hunter named June, some locals said she was in this village, so here he was. He went on to different sections of the village, the plaza, the markets, some of the stores but finally a beat up man with a red bandana and white robes (anyone noticed that in the show?) said she was at the tavern.

He had to shake his head; of course she would be at a tavern.

And the local tavern he saw, just over by the end of the market block, oh she was definitely there, how did he know? That giant beast called a Shirshu was laying by the door chewing at who knows what.

As he passed by it, the beast poked its head out to him in curiosity, apparently aware of who he was. Suddenly it got up and tackled him to the ground. It growled at him for a little while and took in his scent.

A moment later after it let go of him, the beast circled around him a little and then went back to its resting place like nothing had just happened. Zuko was a little taken aback but knew better than to question it, considering the creature's tongue carefully.

So he just shrugged it off and went inside, where chaos indeed ensued. Narrowing his eyes at the entrance, it was just like any other tavern, people fighting and drinking everywhere in abundance. He scanned the thug-infested place for that particular slim body he remembered very well, but there wasn't one in sight, all that there was were drunken men.

It didn't make any sense; her Shirshu was stationed outside, where was that woman? She seemed like the type that liked the attention, or at least wasn't shy about it.

June was not one without surprises, though.

Up top on the second floor, June was, as usual, fighting some random men for a drink. She dogged a jab at her abdomen and the second after another to her face. She counterattacked by tripping her attacker off their feet and throwing him to the floor below hers. Grabbing her alcoholic drink while she did and then drinking in satisfaction, she, however, failed to notice one thug sneak behind her and push her overboard as well. She gasped in surprise.

The Fire Lord was still searching for the dark girl when suddenly he noticed men falling to their doom from above. 'The second floor' Zuko thought as he turned around rapidly and looked up in an expectant manner.

"Look out!" she shouted but it was too late, June had landed on Zuko.

The girl smashed him to the ground with her full body mass and almost made him see stars. "Auugh" he mumbled in pain.

June was unscathed, landing on top of none other than the new Fire Lord. She did, however, shake her head off a bit of dizziness and grumbled slightly at her situation. But upon recovery, she finally noticed she was on top of someone.

Zuko's vision cleared as he tried to stir himself back to reality, his head had hit really hard on the wooden floor. That was definitely the voice of the girl he wanted to meet…just not in the way they were at the moment, Zuko blushed a little.

She was straddling his upper body; her ass was atop of his chest and her crotch only a few inches off his face, it was a very suggesting position. June seemed to notice his blush and looked back at him amused, enjoying his suffering. The Fire lord noticed her smirk and immediately gazed back furiously at her.

"Well, well, isn't this a pleasant surprise, it's the new Fire Lord himself" June crossed her arms around her large bosom still smiling down at Zuko, greeting him in her way.

"June I need to talk to you for a moment" he then looked at something other than her groin and noticed that everyone had eyes on them, 'great..' he thought, now everyone knew who he was.

"In private, and would you please get off of me!" He yelled.

"Fine...fine" she shrugged her shoulders holding her hands up as she got off Zuko.

They started walking out the door but a voice stopped them. "Hey! You still owe me a drink!" shouted a rather drunken looking man at June as he charged at them. But he was immediately stopped by Zuko when he elbowed him in the abdomen with ease.

The thuggish looking character dropped like a sack of rice "why do you always hang around these people?" questioned the fire lord as he stood back straight, dusting himself.

"Hey I only come for the booze, the jerks are just part of the show" June explained.

Zuko said nothing but led the way out the door with silent and demanding food steps, June followed as the party resumed as if nothing had just happened.

Once outside, June leaned on her pet Shirshu waiting for him to talk. "So, to what do I owe the honor of his Excellency's presence tonight?" June asked in an almost mocking voice.

Not pleased with her sense of humor, the Fire Lord stood with his back facing her, his hand behind them. "I came here on strict business June,  _not_  for old times sakes." Then faced her with his serious tone.

June raised an eyebrow at him with a bored expression, and waited for him to continue.

Zuko briefly exhaled, calming himself before beginning to tell his reason for being there "The fire nation council and I have decided that it was in the nation's best interest to compensate all of those who have aided in the ending of the 100 year old war" he took out a scroll from a pouch he had under his cloth.

June was unfazed by his speech but raised her other eyebrow at the sight of the scroll, then looked at him in the eyes questioningly.

Zuko replied her unasked question as he held the item "This scroll here contains the official signatures of all the council members, and myself, authorizing you to a small percentage of…" he stopped himself, unsure of how to say the same thing he had been telling everyone he needed to compensate for his crimes.

However, he resumed "My family's riches and wealth, I never had a need for them, and uncle doesn't want them either" he explained this with a little uneasiness, remembering that his uncle Iroh lived in Ba Sin Sei, happily serving tea. He didn't need any of it.

June continued to stare at him for a moment, but with sly smile starting to appear on her face, her features changed significantly at the sound of 'riches' and 'wealth' this was definitely her day.

She had to giggle a little, with eyes shot in joy, June covered her mouth. The thought was almost unbelievable. She was getting paid today, for something that she virtually didn't think much of when she did it. When Zuko and his friends asked for help with the old man, June had actually done it because of the urgency that the group of teens seemed to manifest.

Okay, maybe she wanted to help too.

She stopped laughing and looked at Zuko's stoic face, maybe she had done it out of the kindness of her heart too? The prince had looked so sure of himself she couldn't find it in her to say no.

That and perhaps the fact that they might have bitten her head off if she didn't agree.

She softened her stare at him and, again, smiled slyly at the now Fire Lord.

But for his is part, the Fire Lord was not amused, he would have been angry if the situation for diplomacy and maturity didn't come first, he forgot how infuriating June could be.

"So I take it I can cash in on the money soon hmm?" asked the black clothed female.

Zuko tossed the scroll at her, "That's why I'm here, I'll personally be there when you request the rights"

June agreed, they wouldn't give her anything unless there was concrete proof that it was legitimate plus some more, especially if it was a large amount of money. She guessed it was, seeing as it was him and not a representative granting it.

It still surprised her that he would do this for her though, he could have easily gone about his business of ruling the fire nation, instead of worrying about just one person. She found that the direct approach was always the best way when she had a question.

She stood from her leaning position and straightened, facing him she asked a little suspiciously "So why are you so concerned about paying me? I would have thought royalty didn't give a damn about the commoner?"

Zuko shifted a little "I told you already, it's to compensate your help in finding uncle, without you, I wouldn't have-

He trailed off, remembering that refreshing memory when he met his uncle at the camp near the wall in Ba Sin Sei, he had been so happy to see him, and even more that he had forgiven him, the thought brought a smile to his face.

June saw him smile and was a little taken aback, what was on his mind all of the sudden?

"Sorry. I was just thinking about how everything went after we found uncle" he sighed a little and looked away, putting his left hand on his head to think back at what he was saying. "It's actually more of a 'generous contribution's to potential allies, as the council would have put it"

June had thought that there was a problem between the two, hence why they weren't together. But she had dismissed the thought at the time. She could understand why the Fire nation needed to surround itself with allies however.

She adopted a sheepish expression on her face and said to him "No need to say more oh Fire Lord, I'm just a little surprised at how much you've changed"

She held her hand with the scroll and put it in a bag that was attached to her pet Shirshu. Then she hopped on top of it with a leap, awakening the beast, and patted the seat behind her.

Zuko looked at her quizzically at what she was doing from his spot.

"C'mon, let's go get my money so I can buy myself a new wardrobe set I've had my eye on for a while now" she smiled cheekily.

He chuckled a little at her eagerness and went to take her extended hand to help him up the beast. June had never felt uncomfortable with his touch in the past, especially since she had just landed on him; not that he'd touched her that much during his exile days either, however when he settled himself behind her and felt his large hands grip her hips, almost tenderly, she found herself a bit more self-conscious.

Ahh, the irony of the situation was aggravating, to say the least.

Maybe it was the hormones, she never paid much attention to them before, being a bounty hunter meant she had a lot on her mind. Now that the world was becoming a better place to live however, she hardly got any contracts from anyone. June found herself on down time at the bars more often these days.

She had started to feel like woman lately, ogling the nice dresses at the stores, considering buying a really expensive onyx ring she saw the other day. She was even debating about being nice to people when they asked for trivial things.

Yes, the world was changing after the war, and she was along for the ride. And she found herself… strangely liking this new feeling.

Having Zuko come to her and offer money was a blessing by the spirits, she was running dangerously low on coins (not that she would admit that to anyone), and with almost no jobs for her line of work, she was actually starting to consider working as a waitress at the very bars she fought at. But only as a last resort, her only other alternative would have been to steal.

Which was okay by her, but it was just too much work trying to survive like that, she knew that by childhood experience…

She frowned.

"My ship is directly west from here June, head for the coast, you'll see it" shouted the fire lord from behind her, breaking her line of thought.

"Why do we need to go to your ship? Did you forget something?" she asked a bit confused.

"We have to sail to another city north of here, it is one of the few places in the earth kingdom were the fire nation still holds close ties to the banks" Zuko said out loud.

"Alright" she shouted back and sped up unconsciously west, making Zuko hold an even tighter grip on her waist.

* * *

Upon arrival at the rather small ship, June instantly felt a sigh of relief, Zuko got off from her and she followed suit.

She let her train of thoughts shift to the ship "Wow, is this how you ride nowadays your  _highness_?" she mocked him.

Zuko just gave her an exasperated exhale and answered in equal mockery "Yes, now let's go before your sense of humor gives me a headache" he walked up the ramp of the ship.

A soldier saw to their arrival and greeted Zuko "your Lordship, we didn't expect your arrival so soon" he along with some of Zuko's trustees accompanied him on his highly discreet travels in the earth kingdom, no one was to know what they've been doing, everyone else thought Zuko was still in the fire nation.

"Be ready to sail soldier, we leave as soon as the ship is seaworthy" he pointed behind him at June with his thumb and added "and find her a room"

June just smiled and waved at the man cheekily. Like that was gonna happen.

"Of course Fire Lord!" said the fire nation soldier as the Fire Lord walked passed him and headed inside the massive ship, leaving the soldier to deal with June.

"Well isn't that kind of him, leaving me alone with you?" she asked no one in particular. The sailor ignored her comment.

"This way please" he started to walk to another side of the ship but was stopped when she put a hand on his shoulder.

"Hey now, don't forget about her" to her pet Nyla, the beast howled and snorted at the base of the deck of the harbor, it's tongue lashing out dangerously at him.

The soldier stepped back a little just noticing the large beast.

"Make sure she has plenty to eat, otherwise she gets testy around people" June pointed out with her hand on her hips, implanting that little seed of fear into the man. Then she looked back at it.

"Don't worry, I'll be back soon to check on you, be a good girl" and without another word walked over to where Zuko had vanished to find her own way, effectively ignoring the soldier's cry.

"W-wait!" but it was too late, she'd disappeared behind the steel door.

"Arghh!" growled the Shirshu in distaste at being ignored, the large beast had not eaten any proper food for a while and she was hungry.

The masked soldier immediately turned around and stared at it for a minute terrified, before making the conscious decision to do as he was told by the girl, and fast.

His fear for his life had made him completely forget about his duty that had just been giving to him.

* * *

Fire lord Zuko settled himself on his bed in the far wall of his small compartment where he bunked, setting down his heavy load at the feet of it as he did.

He led out a heavy sigh.

These last few months had been so tiresome for many reasons, he thought he had more stamina after years of sailing experience.

A small laugh escaped his sour lips, maybe he was finally tired of it, Angi knows he spent enough time at sea to shame some of the full-time sailors in his armada.

His uncle had once again proven to be right. And as the days went by during their travels, Zuko realized that he had actually been right most of that time he had tried to advise him.

Crunching his face a bit, Zuko could just make out his uncle saying the words 'set anchor more often and enjoy the places we go to prince Zuko, after all, you would be surprised how relaxing it can be'

Zuko had to grin slightly, of course he had denied his request, at the time it seemed to him like the most important thing in the world was to find and bring the avatar to his father. There was really nothing more he cared about.

How stupid he had been. To not even think about the consequences of his actions.

Zuko sat straight on his bed and leaned forward, putting his hand over his hair as he stared down at the metal floor a bit frustrated.

Typical way to spend his time.

He wondered, how much different it would have been if he hadn't been such a hotheaded fool. All the remedying he was doing right now around the world was mostly because of his ancestors' doing true, but he just couldn't help himself wonder how much of a difference he could have made had he made the right decision before the comet had come.

If it hadn't been for the avatar giving him a second chance, Zuko would have been completely lost after he betrayed his uncle.

He cringed at that, like a giant, flying bison slap on the face. Betraying his uncle was the biggest mistake of his life.

Then he realized something, the slap becoming bruised.

Even though he had changed for the better, Zuko was still his father's son, and still possessed the characteristics and traits he did.

Characteristics like  _betrayal_.

Zuko cringed yet again and held on to his head tighter as his eyes went wide in shock, he had felt _nothing_  after he accepted Azula's proposition to join her, nothing but determination.

He had been prepared to  _kill_  if he needed to in order to retrieve the avatar, his honor back.

And even though he held no real love for his father now like he did then, yearning for acceptance, it remained true that the Prince-in-exile then, would have stopped at nothing to achieve his goals, whether those goals were good or bad, he would do what he needed to do.

That fact remained true today.

Zuko could easily slip back into his prime nature if he wanted to, he had the choice, he always did.

_Betrayal._

The thought scared him more than just a little, evil was nothing new to him when he was surrounded by it, and when he had been  _re-born_  from it in the past.

He slipped a finger at his old wrinkly scar.

His past mistakes had shaped him dramatically into a man with an unnatural destiny, he was so easily capable of changing it all.

"I don't mean to intrude your  _honor_ , but you look even more miserable than you used to, something the matter? " chimed the only female voice in the entire ship.

Zuko opened his eyes and saw that June was leaning at his door frame chewing on a nail, looking at him with an awkward interest in her eyes.

The young Fire Lord grunted where he sat.

* * *

June had managed to navigate herself through the labyrinth that was the fire nation tanker, although it was smaller than she used to remember them being, was still big enough to get lost in.

She had stumbled down an aisle to the side of the ship looking for an empty room to bunk when she noticed a series of sighs and a chuckle from an opened door at the end of the hall.

So letting the curiosity get the better of her, and June being, well, June, walked slowly next to the door and pressed herself on the metal, silently listening.

Then she heard a series of shuffling, or ruffling of skin and fabric, and then another groan from a clear male.

A thought formed itself in her head, wondering if perhaps she had stumbled upon a private session.

And the groan sounded very familiar to her, June smiled mischievously as she continued to listen for more, wondering just how he had managed to get so far ahead of her so quickly  _and_ be doing that.

But after a few seconds of contemplating and listening, she heard nothing more.

Yet again June smiled coyly and decided that now was the time reveal herself, and possibly prepare herself for an interesting sight. So as June turned fully in front of the door she was quite surprised indeed, if not a bit disappointed at the prospect.

It had been the Fire Lord yes, but he was far from doing what she thought he was doing. The younger teen was just sitting there, looking far too depressed, holding his head in what looked like total defeat.

June's smile left her as she wondered if he might have caught a bad headache or some sickness, but that guess left immediately when she saw him trail a finger gingerly down his own scarred left eye and cheek.

She looked closer at him, realizing he hadn't noticed anyone come around, the boy looked far older than he was. Tired shadow ring lines had formed around his honey colored eyes, she was sure he didn't have that on him when she met him at the tavern.

She bit her fingernail, leaned her body on the doorway and decided to ask him about it.

"I don't mean to intrude your  _honor_ , but you look even more miserable than you used to, something the matter? "

Zuko had looked up and grunted in a clear displeasure, June just smiled at him again.

"What are you doing here June," Zuko looked clearly annoyed at being disturbed from his thoughts.

June held both her hands up and wiggled her shoulders up in a shrugging manner "Hey, I was just looking around, happen to come by here"

Zuko shook his head and gripped his head, he really needed a massage or something.

He said nothing else for a bit but started to work on setting the things that were in his bag at a stand next to him.

"Well, while you're still here, you might as well like to know we'll be arriving tomorrow at dawn, so you might want to get some sleep, Firefly city isn't far but we're still a long way, so we'll be sailing at full speed"

And as if on cue, the pipes that ran about the Fire lord's room started to shake steadily against each other as the steam inside started pumping more rapidly, shouts could be heard outside.

June looked up, quite surprise at the amount of noise these metallic monsters made in comparison to their wooden counterparts.

But Zuko, being quite familiar with the feeling merely went back to organizing his things, taking into account the things that he would take and what he would leave.

After he was done here, Zuko had another annoying meeting with the council in the Fire Nation, to report back on his diplomatic doings from the past couple of months traveling. June was just one person out of the hundreds they needed to make amends to. He had his work cut out for him.

"So, Fire lord huh? Quite the promotion...and the responsibility" June added the last with quite a distaste in the tip of her tongue.

He stopped arranging his things and looked back at her, why was she still in there for?

But he decided to suit her curiosity, if only to get rid of her until morning came.

"It helps not to think about it"

June stopped her musings at the thought of being a Fire lord, and once again looked at his exasperated face. How can someone look so tense all the time? he needed a drink.

She started to play with her left bang as she spoke "You know, for the ruler of the most powerful nation in the world, you certainly don't take it easy do you?"

"I can't take it easy"

June chuckled softly and let go as she blinked and rolled her eyes to the left thinking "I seem to recall your uncle mentioning that back in the day"

The Prince then leaned back on the wall from his bed, also recalling the events "I was a prince back then, you know that"

"Yeah, I know" she straightened herself and made her way closer to him "Funny how some things happen, one minute you're after the avatar's head, the next you're riding with him to stop your father. Or so I heard"

"Things change June" Zuko once again closed his eyes remembering his ordeals during the past couple of years, from the moment he set sail a disgrace, to the moment of his coronation as fire lord.

Yeah. Things change.

Then  _the_  memories started to replay themselves again, like nightmares plaguing his conscious. The look his uncle gave him after he so easily and diligently chose power and acceptance over him in that damn cave. The terrified stare Toph, the earth bending girl showed after he stupidly lost his cool at the western air temple. The menacing glare Katara send him, daring him to try and  _betray_  them like he knew he so easily could do.

For her part, the black haired teen in front of him didn't know how, but he was right, things change. There was this air about wherever she went ever since it was announced that the fire lord was overthrown and a new order had been set.

People seemed more happy than usual, a lighter sense seemed to creep within everyone like an infection, everyone acted friendlier and even, she dared say, understanding towards one another.

If she were the type to believe, June would have said that the balance had somehow been restored? Not that she knew anything about balance of power, she was just a bounty hunter.

She glanced down at the Fire lord once again, looking like he was about to start brooding any second.

He appeared to be just about the only one around who didn't fall under the spell. Ironic, since he probably took a big part of the revolution.

She let her right hand rest on his shoulder "Hey now, I may not be your uncle, but I can tell when there's something serious on someone's mind"

Zuko looked up a bit startled, and a doubtful eyebrow popped up his forehead, questioning her actions.

"I know it's not my business and I know I don't look the type...if you want to talk I'm listening" It was clear to June that the former prince hadn't had good advice in a while.

She inwardly laughed a little, the bounty hunter had suspected there might have been a purpose for that old creepy man other than just family traveling around.

But Zuko didn't buy it at all, he grunted mockingly and looked to his side avoiding her.

"It's nothing that you need to concern yourself over June"

She could see where he was trying to avoid the subject, and quite honestly she knew it was none of her business, after all, they weren't friends or anything. She just happened to observe him enough from back then and now to know when something was wrong.

June had been prone in the past to ask him, the guy was interesting if nothing else. It was almost as if she could see that cloud of doubt and even  _fear_  that escaped him. Yeah, it was defiantly familiar.

She narrowed her eyes more critically, inspecting him and that aura of secrecy he had.

And sat down next to him boldly, looking at him with a straight face.

"You know, you never told me how that baldheaded pipsqueak and his weird friends happened to put their differences aside with you, care to enlighten a girl hmm?" June had forced him to look at her, setting aside the other question for a simpler one.

Zuko stared back a bit oddly and scratched his head "It's ahh... a long story"

"Well, we do have all night" Then she smiled wickedly at him "That is unless you have something better to do"

"Actually I do have something better to do"

"You mean like brooding?"

"HEY! I don't brood!"

June laughed loudly for a second at the sudden loss of composure and said "That's not what your uncle told me"

"Wha-uncle? When?"

"A while ago when we first met"

Zuko slammed his forehead with his palm, immediately cursing his uncle's habits of 'wooing' the younger females by giving away details of their life. As 'charming' as his uncle thought he was, his tongue tended to wonder when he thought the situation was trivial.

June was already leaning forward with a victorious grin "Looks like he was right, top of the line" she flickered her fingers swiftly and pulled her hair back with it after.

Zuko continued to look annoyed "I don't brood alright, I just think about... stuff, that's all"

"In that case, you wouldn't mind sharing some of that stuff?" She remained where she was but crossed her arms once again around her large cleavage.

He sighed for the millionth time today, in all honesty, he really didn't want to continue arguing, he was tired enough as it was.

So he made himself comfortable on his bed, carefully laying down on it with one hand behind his skull as he stared into the nothingness that was the ceiling above him.

One foot still on the metal ground, while the other had inadvertently landed on June's left calf, where she had sat at an angle to face him.

She became aware of his extremity relaxing on top of hers as she glanced at it for a moment, her self-consciousness began to kick in again.

The Fire lord seemed to not care or had not even noticed the physical contact as he closed his lids and begun telling her the tale in a bored tone.

"I betrayed my uncle the day before Ba Sin Sei fell more than a year ago..." That certainly earned a startle by June, her eyes widened slightly at the revelation.

"I did it so I could acquire Aang with the help of A-a relative, and get my honor back" He chuckled a little in distaste, his father's love was nothing but a lie, and he didn't even want to talk about his sister.

He waved a hand nonchalantly in the air almost like he was trying to reach to the ceiling while he glanced at her with the corner of his eye "you know, the whole honor thing I had going on back then"

June nodded a rapid yes as he stared back up, still a bit bewildered by the suddenness of it all.

"Things well, seemed to be going fine when I arrived home, we didn't get him but Azu-" He stopped for a second, but it was too late already.

So he sighed, "Azula managed to convince father that we...I killed Aang"

Zuko shook his head disapprovingly, reminding himself just how gullible, how stupid he had been for falling into another of Azula's tricks.

June had made herself more comfortable in his bed as she listened, pushing her body more into the tiny bed "Is this Azula your sister?" she asked curiously, cleverly guessing who he was talking about. She had heard stories of a fire nation monarch by that name who had caused a lot of stir around the continent.

Looking still up, Zuko nodded as he continued "Azula...my crazy sister, she knew the avatar wasn't dead and lied to make me the one to blame once he showed up, she  _knew_ he would show up, and father would have my head then..."

The seriousness of his tone betrayed his body, his right knuckle cried out in pain as it tightened in anger. She had so easily played him like Sungi horn in early spring solstice.

June would have admired the girl's tactful scheme to frame her own brother, had the situation at hand with Zuko been different. But then again royalty had a thing for power and control, so she shouldn't be surprised at such a dirty move.

"So what happened when your father found out?" she asked rather serenely, staring at his laid back face and distant eyes.

Zuko cracked a smirk at his own intrepid move that day of the eclipse "He didn't, until I told him when we were alone at his personal bunker"

Her eyes blinked rapidly at him, and her mouth opened slightly in utter surprise.

However, the Fire Lord paid her no attention as he continued the tale "He wasn't too pleased, but in my time back I realized I couldn't stay, I felt so guilty at what I had done I just couldn't-" his eyes became slits to stop himself from choking the out words "I wasn't gonna help him when the avatar faced him, I  _wanted_  him defeated." His fist was turning paler than they were already, but inside he felt the heat.

The heat of  _Betrayal._

The older teen at his feet had regained her senses as he had started to speak again and watched him wryly trying to regain control of himself, with a bit of concern she didn't think she had since she had been very little.

June put her own leathered one atop of his shaking knuckles, which of course surprised him as much as it did her "I don't know much about families, but my father was a drunken bastard, I think I know how you feel"

His fist unclenched ever so slowly as hers clenched his, and her touch had suddenly become warm rather than the cold he remembered in those few instances they made contact.

The Fire lord's mind wondered for a little, at the similarities, her hand was much like that of Mai's after she would say something nice to him and kiss him passionately in the mouth afterward.

He gazed down at the hand still surprised. June finally realized what she had done and quickly pulled out. Once again feeling self-conscious, she rubbed her hand at the heat he naturally exuberated, it had reached all the way up to her chest.

The heat of it was like nothing she had felt before.

Zuko held up his extreme to his face with the tingling warmth slowly fading into itself, and chuckled, rotating it as he inspected it.

Still rubbing, June looked up at what he was doing and blushed slightly, nothing even compared to this sudden sensation she was still feeling, "I'm sorry Fireman, I-I don't know what came over me"

He glanced at her as soon as she spoke and dropped his arm down with a soft thud. He wasn't sure what had happened, but attributed it to the mystery of his new firebending skills, somehow.

He looked back up.

"Don't worry about it"

June squirmed and held the ever growing inflaming arm close, trying to compose herself.

"Anyway, I followed after them...Aang and his friends, without uncle this time though, I knew why they weren't able to take the city"

June was at an impasse from what had happened, despite him continuing like nothing had just happened, some of her emotions she hadn't felt in  _years_  had blasted upwards. She wouldn't admit to herself, she couldn't, but they had. June had begun to feel exposed for the first time in a long time.

And her pale, gelid body seemed to be getting devoured by the heat, accepting it even, fervently.

"They traveled west for days to the western air temple, I knew it would be hard to convince them to accept me, but I had to try"

Consumed, she started to remember a bit as he spoke, her mind looking back, when she had started to drink at bars, she knew why, oh yes she knew. As a little girl, she would have given anything for a good lump of bread and a cup of fresh water every once in a while so she wouldn't starve to death, her bastard of a father rarely glanced at her twice a day in those dark times.

The drinks helped ease the pain, before she started to become addicted to them.

"I burned her, and Katara...her eyes, she hated me so much, I knew I made a terrible mistake but I was ready to show them I changed, I wanted to apologize"

The  _warmth_ , the pleasure she had felt from biting that fresh apple with fervor the first time she stole, when no one came back to feed her. An empty void had been filled as she realized early on, what she had to do if she were to survive.

It was really childish, to feel at home just from eating a fruit, was she so cold, so forgotten that the simple touch of  _fresh food_  fed not only her grumbling stomach, but her empty spirits? It was warm.

"It felt, different when they accepted me" he led a small grin escape his dried lips "Almost like I had friends,  _real_  friends"

And that nice boy in her class, even as she went to school by herself every so often, who sparked her insides into fire with his kindness. She wanted more, she needed more! Her eyes would plead to the adults, they screamed in agony as if her soul were chained to the depths of the underworld.

Help me!

"-I had to help Aang win against my father, to teach him firebending, I was just about the only one who was willing-"

But none would, and as she started to grow up, June had settled on herself that the world she lived in, wasn't worth her emotions, especially  _love_.

And then the small freckles of warmth disappeared within her, she had completely forgotten about it.

"-the dragon masters helped us comprehend firebending, they showed Aang and I that fire wasn't just anger, rage, destruction" Zuko clenched his fist again lifting his hand up, mimicking the motion of the dance with it.

Until now that is, June longed, she  _ached_  for the warmth, a warmth that made her feel alive.

"But that the true nature of fire was life, a vision of pure, unhindered  _life_ "

June couldn't let it go though, it had been so long, and she didn't want to expose herself to harm again, she would go insane!

She shook herself out of her stupor, making the new Fire lord look at her with a raised eyebrow.

"Bored already?" Zuko honestly had no idea why he was telling her all this, he hadn't realized, but it helped him greatly to get all of his thoughts out of his gut for once to someone, even if it was June.

June opened her mouth but all that came was a desperate gasp, as if she had held her breath for days and just started to breathe again, her eyes dilated staring at something beyond him, hearing him but nor seeing him, and her body still with that burning sensation.

He lifted his upper body and waved his hand a little in front "June? June!"

The elder teen blinked suddenly "I-I..."

How ridiculously ironic, wasn't he the one suppose to be brooding at his past and she the one to cheer him? she gazed from his fluttering arm to his inquisitive, if not worried expression.

"I was...was just remembering something, that's all" she stuttered nervously looking away in a fluster, what was she remembering?.

That kind of behavior was rather strange for someone like June, Zuko thought. It couldn't possibly be the late hour, he knew that for sure.

But he would try to remind her of that fact anyway.

"Well, it's late, I think it's about time to turn in, as uncle would have put it" he rested a hand on his chin reminding himself of him once again, perhaps he should visit him soon.

June looked down and tried to regain her composure while holding her forehead, but only moaned at a sudden headache that started to flourish.

Zuko for his part noticed her twitching and starting to sweat rapidly, he put a hand on her shoulder unconsciously.

"June, there's definitely something wrong with you"

She tried to wave him off but her pain only blasted tenfold, her eyes watered she could feel them, she was biting down her mouth so much she could taste the blood.

"No it, it's, I can..." her right arm started to shake, and she tried to open her eyes and look around, but everything was so blurry and things started to twirl and twist around.

It felt like when she had gotten completely drunk.

But Zuko started to notice her swaying from side to side, her pupils fought to stay still but they wavered upwards, had she been sick all this time? she led on no signs of any sickness until now.

'why, what's going on?' she held a hand forward to stop herself from falling to the blur she thought was the fire Lord, and he caught her.

June started to have a flash as Zuko's worried face faded away, her green yellowish peasant dress laying on the cracked kitchen chair appeared, she had just washed it after getting it dirty while she had played outside in the mud.

'It'll soon be dried, then I can wear something pretty again!'

"June! hold on we'll go get the ship's medic" his words echoed, but from where?

A mountain of food laid upon her tear streaked face, torn between good and bad, the young June took an especial glance at the pile of apples, and yet wondered to the chubby looking man at the vendor stand with a drink in his hand. A liquidly, red swirling as he set the cup down the counter after tasting the exotic, alcoholic nectar.

Her nose twitched with despair, she was so, so very thirsty!

The young Lord hurriedly picked her up by the back and legs, thinking fast he rushed to the hallway, his previous attempt a waking her failed, June had just dropped like a dead corpse.

"Guards!"

If only she had remembered how that old wrinkled man had done it, June wouldn't have been running for her life now. A cleaver in his man, that chubby man had chased her a good ways before his stubby and sweaty legs had given up to her lean but small frame. It was close, yeah. But she had lunch.

Her not so stealthy stolen goods were as good as any, and it would only go upwards from then on if she got better at it.

_'Stole'_  she mildly repeated, her young, frail mind vexed inside. It was wrong.

Zuko heard her murmur something and stopped immediately, his first mate stopped a few ways ahead confused.

"Wha-?" But the dark clothed woman had stopped. Her eyes still closed.

"Fire lord, the medic is just this way" urged his first mate.

Then it was the scream, a middle age woman who begged for her worthless life. June was a cold one, but her first time killing as a bounty hunter changed her.

But the blood in her whip called to her. Nyla grumbled just behind her, tasting the blood in the air.

The contract had good enough money to last them a month at least. A month filled with drinks.

Drowning her insecurities at the bar helped her, that is until she noticed her fingers drenched in blood.  _Killing_  was wrong. But it felt so right.

"It look's like she just fainted milord, I'd say from mere fatigue but truly, I have no idea as of yet... "

He frowned at the non-answer, Zuko was still not a very patient man "I hope you're not telling me you're useless in a situation like this"

"Of course not your Excellency, a mere dose of this" he opened her mouth and dropped three drops of a red liquid inside her mouth. See seemed to frown a bit at the taste, despite being unconscious.

But she mustn't care, she wasn't, she can't...

June just wanted a bit of the world too, June just wanted to feel alive.

"It's rather strange though"

"What do mean?"

The medic dropped his eyelids in contemplation "Well your grace, forgive me for being so blunt however, it's rather strange because she has shown no signs of sickness before?" he asked.

Zuko shook his head "No, we were just fine until now, could she have been poisoned?"

"I can't say for sure without checking her blood your grace" He inspected her form "She seems to be in relatively good health outwardly, if it had been poison, she would have had immediately felt at least a mild headache a few minutes after the injection or consumption, unless-" the old man stopped in contemplation.

The young man had had his share of poison in his short lifetime, not a pleasant feeling "Unless what?"

The doctor checked her pulse and leaned in closer to her to listen in to the rhythm of her breath, steadying as the seconds passed by.

"Stabilizing I see" He adjusted himself up and once again looked at the slightly angered face of his Fire Lord.

"It's just a theory my lord, but until I check her blood for some pre-emptive analysis I can't be certain, however, I can at least assume whatever it was that caused this" He pointed to her "It was deathly and meant for an almost instant death if indeed she was a victim of foul play, if not, well then, the possibilities are nearly endless " he adjusted his glasses with his index finger "Ranging from simple natural sickness, such as allergies that could have been exponentially accelerated to deathly levels, to even a rare form of cancerous disease she might have contracted recently and/or developed herself as she has grown up"

The doctor then grabbed a phial with a transparent liquid in it from his doctor's case as well as a syringe, which he calmly pressed to her exposed forearm, drawing is the red liquid as he started to speak to Zuko once again.

"It could also be failure of her immune system to maintain the proper amount of antibodies like white blood cells regeneration process, if such were the case, she would have been more prone to infections and diseases, an easy target to germs if I do say so myself"

He took the syringe and examined it with a thoughtful mind and a critical eye.

Zuko had taken back all insecurities he had of the doctor, he clearly knew what he was doing.

"I will need more time to examine her your grace, as well as her blood, to check for any abnormalities, although I must say" he looked a bit grimly at his last thought.

"If I find nothing is wrong with her body, the problem could just be here" he tapped his head with his finger.

Zuko looked on "Do you mean, she might have done this to herself?" he couldn't conceive it.

The man sighted "This type of case seems highly unusual based on what has happened so far, I wouldn't go as far as that your honor, unless there wasn't any other explanation" he tapped his chin this time "Of course, if we stumbled upon some type of alien disease not yet known to the world, it would be  _the_  extraordinary case, and absolute worst I'm afraid"

With that last thought, he grabbed another syringe and filled it with the contents of the jar he took a bit ago, and injected it into her veins.

The fire Lord finally sighed and got up from the other bunk he was sitting, nodding to his officers as they left.

"If you need anything, any type of remedy or ingredient for anything, we'll dock immediately at the nearest port"

Zuko didn't wait for a respond though, but left with a frown on his face. Things never went according to plan,  _especially_  when he expected them to do so.

The doctor nodded looking at the young girl as he contemplated still, for a little, this was going be a long night indeed.

* * *

And indeed it was, but more so for young patient laying down in the bed than for the doctor, who busied himself checking some of his phials as they mixed in together with a sample of June's plasma, scribbling down in his notes.

The leathered clothed girl squirmed continuously, the good doctor had already checked her vitals as this progressed through the eve and night, seeing nothing wrong with her except perhaps for nightmares, he grimly left her to have her restless night.

And in truth, the young woman seemed to be getting past the worst, as her mind drifted into her unconscious during sleep, or whatever estate she was at. Reaching out into those long forgotten memories unwillingly, that rooted from half-truths, and cruel mischiefs. Such that shaped her thoughts into twisting events during her younger days, and ultimately made her the person she was.

The gut wrenching blackness June felt, an empty void that she could almost visibly imagine in her mind, whenever she looked at them, so together, so  _happy..._

After the watery fluids from her eyes seized to satisfied her sorrow, she had reserved to feeling nothing but hate, unquestionable, and perhaps even appeasing, unimaginable disgust at them.

It made her nauseous, after it had only saddened her, to gaze continuously at the families around her school. But June would not let the ever-growing evil overtake her, as tempting as it was, as she grew, she would seize to glorify over it, and channel the gratifying hate her subconscious fed her.

And it shaped June into one of the most successful bounty hunters around all of the earth kingdom.

Every time she conducted a bounty, no matter how disturbingly sickening to the others, June felt more than compelled to do it, if the pay was right that is.

There was no question, she was a greedy bitch as far as the rest of the world was concerned. Though, it wasn't just greed for the sake of so, it was avarice for the sake of hiding behind the things she never had as a child.

And June could not have enough of it! For a time, once she had felt the ecstasy of owning her own stuff, she felt almost uncontrollable pleasure, until she realized she really had no need of the material stuff, all she craved, all she needed was the feeling itself that she could own  _anything,_ her covetousness, her eager desire to know she could have  _anything_ she felt she wanted.

No one would stop her, especially not a family.

But the bloodthirst had been harder to suppress once she had first killed, June had been curious upon taking her first 'kill on sight' contract, but shaken and shocked at the amount of content it brought her, the color of blood was beautiful.

How it's gooey properties twisted and melted around and in-between her fingertips, she was mesmerised, intoxicated at the vividness of the color, the feeling, and with dry lips unconsciously licking them with her tongue, she wondered, how did it taste?

Nyla certainly seemed excited at the smell of it, almost as if the scent wasn't foreign to her sensitive nostrils.

Her blood covered whip dripped silently as she held the sinful weapon in her right palm, even the sound of it was unique, licking her fingers one by one, June noticed the distinct heaviness they possessed, compared to something like water, or even alcohol.

Her pet grunted, almost as if warning her of the time, and she had realised she had probably been standing there engorging herself far longer that she needed to, people would soon come about wondering what all the ruckus was.

If her mother were alive, she would have most definitely think of her as a psychotic sicko. June shrugged, she never knew her, therefore she didn't give a damn.

Her mind wondered once again, it had taken quite a bit of will to tell herself that such actions were entirely inhuman, even for her very low standards. After only a few more relished kills, it had almost been a drug, but as she continued to grow, June found comfort in her regular drinks to drown her wickedness, as a trip to the bar was a lot easier to quench her thirst in her misery.

Such things were what tormented her young mind at the time, plaguing her sense of humanity and almost completely drowning any bit of kindness she might of have left.

June had almost become a monster, her conflicting thoughts divulged from lack of interest, to an overwhelming sensation of watching the world burn to ashes.

She was twisted in the inside, and for a time, she liked it that way.

"So, you think you're the prettiest thing in the village don't you" frowned at her soon to be nemesis, with a list of many nameless lackeys behind her. Most toppling her single frame of four feet ten inches.

"Wha-what do mean?" the juvenile June asked as she was minding her own business with a ball near a school park.

"Don't wha- me, stupid little homeless beggar, I see what you're trying to do!" she slapped her around the face and June fell with a short whimper face first into the solid rock floor, her ball rolling down the hill.

June held her soaring spot as she looked on at her assailant with a terrifying expression, she just about giving up hope in making a friend to help her out in school, when she encountered a boy who happily tried to made friends with her a few days ago.

"But I, I just wanted to-" The towering girl overhead kicked her dead on the forehead, sending her head spinning backwards with a sharp cry of pain.

She started to cry silently, there was no point in trying to ask for help anymore, June had been in these situations before, under different circumstances.

And no one ever came.

"I'll warm you now silly girl, don't look so pretty around him, or-" she kicked her abdomen and June instantly arched back with her mouth open, giving a loud wail "you won't be feeling much of anything  _after_  we are done with you"

After they had gone, she had sobbed for a few more minutes before limping her way to where she thought her ball had rolled when she had been hit. She found it punctured and in pieces near where the school's trash was usually placed.

Well after eve, June had sobbed once again, but this time for hours, staring at the nothingness that was the pieces of her once treasured toy, and the meaningless of her life.

Although the night walk to her 'pathetic excuse for a home' brought her back to reality in a second, her thieving skills getting better, she had managed to outrun the random thug that tried to have his way with her. Escaping death once again, this time from a lecherous-looking man.

June was not happy with her life, she never was. And yet there she was, accepting it like an obedient plaything to fate. So it came to no surprise to her that as she started to take control of it during her mid-teen years, she would do nothing less than bathe in her newly found individuality. Taking in as much of it as she could, before it could destroy her.

Not that June knew that at the time, she had no intention of ending her deprived ways anytime soon, but in the end, she had to, or else...

June had seen herself, that one night one of her contracts for murder had made itself known to her. She needed the cash, so how could she refuse such generous gold in exchange for some pitiful lives.

As she was engorging herself in another's fear drenched aroma, before she severed his limbs, June heard the very familiar whimper in a dark corner she had hoped to never hear again.

Her mind went blank as the body parts dropped with a regurgitate sound, the little girl in the corner was clutching a ball to her chest as she laid there nursing her soaring cheek, sobbing quietly and squeezing her tear stained eyes.

She had a nice pretty sundress on, drenched in blood, but pretty.

Yes the drinks helped forget, but upon the memory, June couldn't even look at herself in a mirror, it revolted her to stare at that  _maniac._  She had become the very thing she wanted to run away from.

Pale, so lifeless, so drained of principles, of substance.

That had been only weeks before she met the future Ruler-to-be. She was still in a foul mood and even her obedient pet stirred clear of her. Taking only simple contracts to keep her mind occupied, from the haunting memories.

The warmness in her body seemed to have faded, as she got paler, she lost weight and went to bars more frequently. June was slowly, but surely destroying herself.

She sought to forget, to not allow her mind and body the privilege to remember, until many countless sober nights and a few faints, her cracked mind gave in and June could barely recollect her own identity when she got up.

Needless to say, it had only lasted a day or so, but at least everything from a few months back to her very own childhood was fuzzy as it was, something kept telling her though, as if a mantra had been burned into her skull, that it was dangerous to even attempt to think of the past, and that she should look forward only.

Her pet Nyla grunted worriedly at her. But June waved off at it, she was never one to care for trivial things anyway.

The fuzzy thoughts remained, but at least the vividness, and the haunting was all but gone. She still had a life to live.

June had become nothing but a shell of her former, troubled self. And, once again, but under very different circumstances, she had liked it that way.

'But that touch' she whispered to herself. Almost not believing it, hovering in limbo she wondered, why?

What had caused this feeling, it was driving her into ecstasy, that warmness again, that made her feel like a little girl.

That little girl that screamed, that wanted,  _needed_ to feel it.

Was it that kind of  _warmth_? the one that she had been so familiar with in her past, that begged to be released again.

How could June possible understand what real warmth felt like? half her life, she had just been tricking herself, that she could make it, nourish it, and morphed it into whatever depraved state her deranged mind required.

But only because that little girl inside of her screamed for it, shackled by her limbs to the ground. Bloodied rasped nails, in an attempt to get away from her torment, the anguish of being alone.

' _That_ stupid little homeless beggar' June repeated.

'I don't know what warmth means, I don't know what warmth feels like, but I-'

June gasped, her dry forgotten lips, if she had any at the moment, trembled at the admission.

She bit them and felt nothing, her hollow eye sockets poured dark shadowy rain drops across her disenchanted cheeks.

'I-' she left her naked toes fiercely wriggle together freely, hugged in frantic need. With no warmth but her own, her legs tightened closer to each other and the sweat around them stopped.

The ever so thin arms of hers did little to dissipate the emptiness, the blackness that resided in her chest, despite the attempts at covering it.

Like a shameful mark, a scar for the most undesirable, no matter what she did, June couldn't hide her true self any longer.

'I can't take it anymore! I must have it! I can't live without it!'

And in a desperate path to desire, the once sad little girl without a purpose in life, without the love of a family or friends, broke once again.


	2. Corporeal gift

And so it was that in this darkness, a new path is forged. Long forgotten to rot, as mud like substance pours down in rainy, staining shadows of distressing, shifting destinies. A quick end to all the mistreatments, and to the sorrow that threatened to concave what little piece, what little flair of flickering hope that is left, which is the mountain of desperation in this young woman named June.

For the June that she remembers, at least in the near past, had been nothing short of a mask, a deceit of uncanny comparison, a fake with prideful envy, a fraud who intended to hide to the corners of the temple of her own mind and body, when in truth June had been, and had always been the same from the very beginning.

A  _monster_. A living evil thing that desires the flesh of those around her, to cannibalise on their so called happiness, and to thrive in their delicious, desolate despair. To conquer the fears that awaken them during the night when she is stalking them; when she is  _preying_  upon them. Placing a seed of cloud and of doubt within their pure dreams. To forsaken their merits, andgive them something else to think about when they bring up her name,  _June_.

_June_

And they should fear her, for she is the very embodiment of their creation, June has been carved especially for them. Almost like a refined diamond, she comes back to them again, to  _all_  of them, both sharply and beautifully. And June, well, she is not one without her own surprises, she never was. And she does not aim to disappoint her people. After all, they relished in their ignorance in the past, and she has come to being once more, to remind them that not all things in the three nations' world are as they think they should be.

Or rather as they ought to be, especially nowadays.

June narrows her memories once more, and she thinks not just of them, but she thinks of  _him_. Him that has opened her eyes to the deceit, in more ways than one. And despite not having intended it, the young man had broken the chains that had shackled her to the sharp ground underneath her own corrupted charm. The deliriousness within her subconscious mind as is, where all things were and are perfect, in harmony with the tune to her anguished sonata.

Just the way she has liked it. Just the way it had always been, and just the way it should have been in her ideal, twisted world. But the young lord, unbeknown to him, and perhaps, to some extent herself, has released a bind; a long cord of extraneous, tenacious tethered links that were strapped to her very heart. June's blackened idea of a terra full of malice. Malice and madness that spills forward into a world pure and there. Willing, eager even to accept hers in just the right ways, in which June alone knows how it needs to be filled.

To the brim.

_"How close was I, to flow away. To rampage these feelings of mine. How close was I!?"_

June's unanswered questions lingers on her tongue and waivers for a little on the tip until it is all but consumed by this blackness cocooning her.

But he has sung that song of hope into her stinging ears, he has placed a fist of justice into her ethereal darkened destiny. And he has placed a seed that  _warmed_ her quivering cave of misery, has set her balanced into a catering cosmic delight, cemented her once wavering perception.

And the moon of his empirical existence crashes down onto her perfect world, shattering the walls of pain that her empire had been build around. Her meaningless, dreadful life for over eighteen long years. A life that meant nothing in the end, until today. And it brings her to the very edge of her emotional twister, shaking her awake to the realities that are bestowed in front and about her.

_"How close was I!?"_

Inside, June knows. She knows how close. Because she has already closed that gap in the past, many times in fact. Perhaps, many more times than anybody with any shred of dignity left within them would, most likely, never cross that much again.

June hasn't just been close, though, oh no. June has been there. She has seen it, and she knows it. She has tasted it, she has craved, longed for it even. The question was never how close she was to it.

But how close she was from escaping it completely. To be free from it at last.

Perhaps, at least to her knowledge, June was ever so close as only her conscious mind allowed her subconscious. After all, she was never aware in her life, especially in her childhood, of what it meant to be cared for properly.

To be loved by another, to be  _desired_  by another in such a way that June would accept it unconditionally and without remorse. Without the fear that it was all an illusion carefully propagated by her delirious and evil subconscious, which was fed by her reality. A reality that flattened her to the ground, and brought her to her knees since June could only ever remember it doing.

_"Why!? Why can't you just leave me alone!?"_ June cried, or at least, she thought she was crying in desperation. She has asked that question before, but like always, she never received a straight answer.

The only answer that she ever conceived was the one that she had concocted on her own, as she dwelled into her personal hell.

June looked up suddenly then. Shocked. Because she had just realised something that was never present to her before today. And even though she felt it in her darkened heart, even though she has spoken of it before in delight, June finally truly understood, comprehended what it meant to her. What it could do for her.

And it brought a genuinely happy smile to her bleeding rosy lips, for the first time in her life.

Because the answer to that question, and to her other ones no longer mattered anymore. June doesn't need to know how close she was to end it all, she doesn't need to reflect and ask why. She doesn't even have to consider the possibilities of her perilous situation.

After all, what was the answer to a question, if the question was never intended to be answered? Because in the end, June was there anyway, and now because of the  _warmth_ , because of him, June was alive.

Alive.

Like the midnight fireflies around Shun-Su Cove during the autumn solstice. Or the holler of the rooster-lizard in the early hours of breaking dawn. Things of that nature, she supposed. How would she know anyway? For June was never one to feel alive before. Because to be alive for her, meant a path clustered with chaos and deceit, clouded by a weakness of her spirit, and placed on a pedestal of shame, like a pretty sunflower in a glass display. For her, and  _only_ her to witness as it withered and shrivelled away while the years passed by. Untouched, and uncared for.

In truth, June would have given up long ago if she hadn't already, many times before. But as it were, her existence tended to suck the air out of everyone around her in such a very subtle, incorporeal way, that it kept her from dying. For them, and for her, she was a tear in the fabric of life, one that signalled the very end of all things good and fair. She was like a black hole among the stars, a shadow among the daylight rays. And June had liked it like that very much.

For as it was, for as long as June could ever remember, she has never been touched in a way that not only  _breathed_  life into her very being, not only caressed her sleeping, hollowed figure into life, not only tore her shackled spirit that bound her to this never-ending nightmarish spell; she has never felt the embrace of a welcoming gleam of hope.

Not until today that is.

June felt the shimmering kiss of a promised comfort and protection from the horrors of her past, of a complete and absolute, uninhibited love.

How long had she longed to comprehend, decipher what it meant? It didn't matter to her why, or how anymore. June didn't care, she could watch the earth come down into an enormous cataclysmic upheaval, with thousands dead and millions more on the brink of oblivion. June could witness the passing of a civilization from beginning to end, entirely and not bat a single eyelash.

So long as she could have it. So long as June could feel it within her, deep inside where it mattered the most. Where it would touch her heartstrings, and play with them an anthem of love, a musical melody dedicated to her, and  _her_  alone.

Because to her, there was no other way to move forward again, without losing a reality that bound her to the ground, as ironic as that may seem.

She opened her eyes and saw the turbulence of her mind slowly dissipate into nothingness. She knew exactly what she needed to do now if she were to make that sound of her dreams, become more than just that.

She turned her head sideways and saw a man had her back to her on the opposite side of the room she was currently in.

And she blinked a few moments, noticing his rather sharp attire as he sat there on a stool mumbling, and tinkering to himself about potions and herbs.

June didn't give it another thought, however, and decisively turned her whole body to the side, which in turn left her exposed toes to touch the cold, metal surface below the cot she had apparently been sleeping in.

Slowly, she settled the soles of her feet on the ground and stood up. Not half-noticing as the blanket that covered her body fell in an, almost but not quite, silent mount.

The girl wouldn't even have cared about her current physical state if she had not been so dedicated to finding her target and anyway, it was hardly her first time enjoying the illusion she brought to herself into thinking of the perils she was constantly in.

With careful, uninterested yet persistent steps, she made her way to the far end of the room, where the door was.

Incidentally enough, almost right next to the table where the tinkering man sat.

"Going somewhere so soon?" He asked the wind without even turning from examining his flasks.

June stopped midway, but once again gave it no further thought, and continued to walk her way out.

"I wouldn't recommend it just yet young lady, or you might find yourself on the ground sooner than you might have anticipated" He stopped his ministrations and turned ever so slightly to his left to peek a glance at her "Due to exhaustion that is, you must be very thirsty" He grinned knowingly.

June stopped again, but this time indefinitely as she reached the doorframe and looked at the older man with an expressionless face. She licked her lips a bit and realised that her tongue was drier than the Si Wong Desert.

Strange, she hadn't noticed how dry it was until it was pointed out to her.

"How do you know that?"

The man slacked on his stool chair while he placed the last phial he was examining on his wooden rack. He took his eyeglass off and started to clean it with a rag he had in his pocket as he replied.

"Because, young lady, you have perspired more in the last couple of hours than any human being should be allowed to before going into shock, and you have been terribly ill all the time you'd been here" He narrowed his eyes questioningly "To a degree so deadly in fact, that I am having a hard time believing my own eyes right now"

He looked up and placed his monocle back to his eye, almost hoping the long years as a medical practitioner had caught up to him in some decrepit way. Because for all intents and purposes, the young woman should have been not a few minutes ago, on the brink of death.

June eyed the pitcher of water at the other side of his workstation next to a few wooden cups and a bucket. Her lips twirled around her dry tongue again. And returned to look at the man.

He seemed to have caught her glance "Please do have as much as needed, and if I were you, I would think about going back to the bed afterwards. I do not know what happened to you, but now since you're at least functional, I'm hoping I can properly help you" He chimed kindly.

June made her way to his jug, and drank straight from it boldly, without any remorse or care. A few seconds after chugging down almost all of it, she dumped it back down the table.

"That's not going to happen old man"

"I insist" he backed off a little in his chair and pulled one of his hand in what he thought would be a discreet way behind his back "Wherever would you want to go in such shape? It's pretty late you know"

June looked down at her torso. There were a few patches just bellow her collarbone. And she had just noted a small, cold and tingly sensation coming off of them.

The doctor answered her unasked question, as he quietly rummaged through some of his medical supplies on an opened drawer for a specific item with his concealed hand "Ah, now those are some very special bandages, you see, they have a few microscopic crystallites within them, which help stimulate your heart pace using a unique frequency, quite ingenious if I do say so myself"

June grabbed the one closest to her breast and tore it off, not even flinching a little as it pulled at her skin.

"Now please, I must insist that you rest young lady" the healer reiterated, finally finding the item he had been looking.

June looked up at him as if studying his facial expressions, and answered simply "I'm not going back to bed old man. I must find him, do you know where he is?"

"Him? Are you referring to the Firelord?" He rummaged some more until his fingertips stumbled into a sharp, pointy metal elongation "The Firelord was quite worried about you when he brought you, young lady"

June said nothing, but her stomach fluttered in a mysterious anticipation, and a smile curled up her lips almost automatically at hearing that.

"Could you tell me what happened to you? Oh, but where have my manners gone, I must be fatigued after such a long night. I am a healer of his majesty's court, I have been looking after you thus far since you fainted, young lady. My name is Min-Tzu " The man offered her another kind smile as he introduced himself while holding his hand out.

June went back to appearing uninterested at what he was saying as she removed the last of those things around her chest. Completely ignoring his extremity, she nonetheless replied.

"Listen Min, I don't really know what happened, and I don't really care" she gazed at him intently, almost in a sharp way as she continued.

" _All_  that matters now is that I find him"

The doctor, now identified as Min narrowed his eyes instinctively ever so slightly as he removed his hand from her presence. His other one had adjusted the tool between his index and middle fingers, like holding a pencil. Very suggestively, as a practitioner of medicine and herbs such as himself would only be able to accomplish.

"If I may ask then, why do you want to see the Firelord so badly young one?"

The girl inched to him slightly, and with a suspicious mirth in her eyes, she replied again.

"You don't understand, I  _need_  him" Her eyes danced with the light that the lantern above them ignited. "If I don't find him, I will go insane"

Min raised an eyebrow at that brief maddening gaze in her eyes, which managed to spread to her face and tightened his grip around the hidden instrument and yet commented in kindly.

"Well, we all need things of one nature or another in our lives, but we can never achieve them properly if we aren't well to begin with now can we?" He deterred. For his sake, he hoped the Firelord hadn't brought a lunatic on board.

This little game had started to tie itself into an intricate knot from the loose strings it dangled on. Or so it seemed at first.

June turned and began to walk away heading towards the door without another reply, deciding to ignore him since he clearly didn't want to help.

But the doctor took this opportunity to reveal the syringe in his hand as he got up from his stool chair, he tapped it a bit, and it flashed as he murmured.

"This is for your own good young lady" and lunged at the exposed artery on her neck as swiftly as his rickety muscles and elongated fingers would allow him.

June would have been a foolish girl indeed if she hadn't learned a very long time ago, after many years of practice; that there are things in this world which needed to be understood about the art of subtlety if one were to survive.

Her old self would of reminded her that a man with a broad blade in his hand, and an angry expression upon his features would have long ago, carved her ribcage open and fed her intestines to the mandrills that occasionally raided the back of his butchery for precious food, if she had not noticed the way he perspired as he shuffled his stumpy feet against the dirt covered ground in the marketplace, a few miles off her shack. If she had not noticed the pupils drift slightly to the right more than usual as he talked with a potential customer the second she came close to the hanging raw steaks in the front of his shop. Or the tightening of his meat cleaver, and the sound of muscle strain as his knuckles readied while she touched the liver in the meat rack.

June would have lost an arm before, of course, if she had not noticed how he nervously changed the subject as he spoke delights about his shop.

At the very least, though, she had developed a good sense of reflexes the more she robbed. The more she prepared to be  _their_  creation.

And while the good doctor had been impressively sly, and even surprisingly quick, he was not above the many different aspects of creativeness her mind possessed.

The syringe fell on the cold, metal ground as its contents splattered in a small puddle of liquid and broken glass pieces.

Followed quickly by a hard bump on the floor, as something heavier crashed on its side, close to the broken equipment.

June looked down a little and then crouched next to the unmoving body, she glanced at the sedative and scooped a finger's worth of the dissipating liquid into her poking tongue.

And it began to go numb slowly.

She got up and once again, turned but picked up her boots this time as she began to walk away towards the door. She had a subtle smile on her rosy lips but did glance one last time back while she stepped out. The lantern  _fire_  in the long, metal corridors shook in anticipation within her widening iris'. And the soft skin under them wrinkled in a frenzied expression.

June would have him, no matter what. And nothing would get it her way.

_Nothing_.

* * *

There was a soothing breeze this autumn night, not clammily cold but rather briskly cool. It could even be said it was excellent weather for a nightly expedition in the forest of Bei Fu or even a passing stroll to a rather unimportant village the small battle cruiser went by a few minutes ago. There weren't many nights like these, the ones that could only be enjoyed out in the sea, and almost always during the darker side of the day.

And the moon was not an eyesore on this particular one either, or so at least he thought.

He shifted his shoulder, clearing out a little of the strain that has been building for a while now on that particular part of his body. Perhaps more so these last few days he had been at search.

Then again, he couldn't even begin to count how many days he had gone out on an expedition, for any reason.

Baahh. Who was he kidding anyway? He had probably been building up this tenseness ever since he first sailed off his home nation many, many years ago when he had first become a no one.

And he could still not get rid of it, even now that he was a somebody.

' _Damn it_ _all'_ he cursed in his mind. Why would nothing ever happen right for him?

Maybe he had rightfully deserved this continuous, strenuous punishment. Thanks in large part to his previous mistakes, no matter how big or small they had been. As the hand of fate worked her gears on him for all the things that he had done. Karma, it would seem had a way of getting back at him with an interest that would leave the Earth king bankrupt and begging for rations by now.

He would not mind paying for every single one of them, if he at least could go on doing so without having to deal with incredulous, hardly fair and even ridiculous bad series of events keeping and stalling him. Creeping in one form or another every time he tried to do right by the world that brought him up.

He at least deserved that, didn't he? How could he expiate properly if his own attempts at atonement were all but thwarted themselves?

Well, it was not all bad he supposed, at least he had achieved the honour of being Firelord, had subjects that were somewhat loyal and respectful, a few good friends and even a pretty girlfriend waiting for him back home.

The now Firelord sighed and got off the railing he had been leaning into and headed back to his bunk.

A few minutes ago, he had just had a very interesting discussion with the captain of the ship. A particularly rugged man that resembled more a subject that he would often like to appraise as being far more crass and thick than anyone should be. He has seen many of his kind during his time at sea and knew how to deal with them accordingly. Sometimes, however, even he could not help himself from losing his temper at such shallow individuals.

But he supposed everyone had at least one particular, exceptional skill asset that exempted their obvious lack of others. To this, even he could not disagree, because he knew that if he did, he would be a hypocrite of the highest stature.

Literally. He was Firelord after all.

Ah yes, Firelord of the Firenation.

A title that perhaps, even though he knew it was a grim thing to even think about, served his father and grandfather before him far better in the war sacked world of seasons past.

In terms of authority, he remained the same he supposed, but all the lustre that was illusorily polished with the title before his time as ruler of the least liked nation, thanks to his ancestors, was all but completely mucked with Bison crap of the biggest proportion ever exerted. All the fear that had been so deliberately and even delicately carved into everyone's skulls for decades, as more heinous acts of human disobedience were practised boldly and tyrannically by the dictatorial government of his family, was slowly withering and tearing itself apart, which was ok by him. But what was not good was that it was at  _his_  expense. He knew, oh he  _knew_.

Despite what his uncle had told him. In spite of being a fresh, young and relatively inexperienced face to rise above to the royal throne. In fact, the young Firelord thought it was because he was all those things that they found  _despite_  in him instead. They didn't care about his honor, and they certainly didn't see him as a saviour.

Even his people felt contempt towards him as they followed his orders, especially his people he would argue. Many still believed themselves far better than the rest of the barbarians that inhabited the earth with them.

The people were content and appeased when the threat of war was not looming over their cravenly, pious little heads. And they should be, of course, the world was changing for the better. But when it was time to repent and work hard for the future they surely envisioned in their dreams, all arms were suddenly crossed or up, even as they discretely pointed their fingers his way.

They needed a scapegoat, they needed a sacrifice to end all sacrifices. Someone, anyone to blame for all the suffering, all the pain, the dissension, and displacement caused by over a century of plague and death. They needed people, or even a person, to hang the black badger-batross around their necks, and the Firelord was more than qualified for such a position. And not just  _because_  he was the Firelord, but because of what he had once done before and because of who his ancestors were.

Yes, he had to admit it to himself, this was one of the reasons why he hid from everyone else while he went out looking for dignitaries, mayors, and governors.

For a time, Aang had been to blame too, but people began to love him quickly, as tales of his heroism, his never ending fight for freedom and peace reached every corner and cranny of the world. He was the avatar after all, and just by virtue of being so, was quickly accepted into that role. Children would pretend they were the great Avatar Aang, who fought and conquered the evil, wicked  _Firelord_  of the Fire Nation and his army of goons. To destroy them, and teach them all a lesson which spoke of a balanced humility that had been placed since ancient times for a very good reason. In which no nation would, and should ever be disrupted by another.

And rightly so, Aang deserved every bit of praise for the gallant achievements he protruded. His actions inspired many, brought those who were oppressed by  _his_  family to their feet as the flag of justice was raised to the very doorstep of the Firenation palace.

The young Firelord was not deaf, he could hear them scream his name in a holler of an upcoming, rooting victory. Manikins, puppets, marionettes and dolls were erected, spectacles of plays to every young child. Depicting the gallant battles as the lord of fire was dethroned, some would say, even killed in the service of righteousness only to be replaced by his inept, incompetent  _spawn_. To act as a vessel, chosen and controlled by the avatar himself to ensure everlasting peace.

Despite everything he himself had personally done so far in the service of that same rightfulness, in his very short reign as Firelord, despite everybody he had been paying with his very own wealth. Despite all the time he spent inside and outside trying to reach a resolution with village, town, city leaders, diplomats, lords, and kings. All those countless long hours, every waking moment of deep thought and contemplation solely about how he could do better for them. Despite all the tears, blood and even family that he had given up!  _For them! For a_ _change_ _, for peace!_

_Bang!_

For love to thrive.

The young Firelord retreated his fist off the very noticeable dent that protruded from the metal wall, next to the door of his very own room. He squinted his eyes a bit and grunted loudly in anger as he realised what he had done as he arrived.

He still could not find his mother. He didn't even know if she was still alive.

This whole situation, it was by far a classic case of damn if he had, and damn if he hadn't.

And he had tried all he could think of, but it was never enough.

He supposed he had it coming at any rate, after all, he was nothing but the man in the background. He had ensured himself that post the moment when he decided to start down this giant path of deviant despair, searching, seeking the avatar so he could imprison him and present him as a human trophy for his sociopathic and nihilistic father.

Avatar Aang was the true hero, and Firelord Zuko deserved nothing else, for he had earned nothing else. And anything that he had received and would receive, he mused, he probably did not deserve.

Being Firelord had already proven to be a task that required far more than what little tolerance he saw himself of being capable of. It was more of a curse than it was a blessing.

_'Fire is the essence of life, prince Zuko. Don't forget that as much as you can take life, you can also give it.'_

_'I know'_

Zuko closed his eyes again as he sat on the edge of his bed. Deciding instead to meditate on his thundering thoughts again, and on the warmth that he had grown accustomed to having his fire consume him with.

If the people of the world, even his own people, were at best, indifferent towards him, it was ok by him. All that mattered now was the healing in their hearts, and the happiness of all.

It was worth it, for the sake of prosperity, and for freedom to once more bloom around the four nations. For these reasons alone, Zuko would gladly give out his own freedom and happiness.

He nudged. The strain in his shoulder, however, was still there.

* * *

There was a soft echoing of footsteps that had suddenly invaded the hallway, carefully leading to  _his_  bedroom. They were clearly the clacking of high heeled boots against the hard metal surface. And there was no denying whose those belong to.

Nobody on the ship had such a distinct pace to their walk. It was short, light but with enough weight in them to scream to the world that they were feminine in nature. They were almost poetic, rhythmic stanzas of a promised poised calamity.

She would have skipped a bit on her way if she had been completely sure that he was in there, waiting. The anticipation of knowing would have eaten at her otherwise. Alas, however, nothing was certain, except for patience, and that she would get to him at any cost of course.

_clack, clack, clack, clack._

The refined iron floor vibrated to the resonating successions of such an enrapturing clatter. June's leathered boots were made out of tough specialised leather hide which greatly helped her stay one, ah  _step,_ ahead of her prey. Allowing both balance and elegance for those quick in moments notice, for situations that could swiftly escalate in mere seconds to periods of exhilarating exacerbations.

This ship had been quiet all night, with most of the skeleton crew sleeping or in their post outside of the ship. Naturally, they would as it had been plenty late in the night, or even pretty early in the morning if one where to ponder it differently. To June, none of these things mattered, however, it could have been shining brightly outside for all that was worth.

And as she got closer, she noticed the shadow markings, no doubt cast by the candles within, peeking outside the hatch. Of which was opened for anyone interested enough to peep a look at the regal figure that reassured her he was in there, peacefully seated while he meditated and argued with his inner thoughts.

It was as astoundingly similar as it was completely unlike earlier when this situation presented itself. And June could not help but bite her lower lip suggestively,  _much_  more suggestively than last time after her boots stopped echoing on the hallway. She took an almost uncaring note of a dent at the side of the wall but thought nothing else of it.

Ah, there was no time for being self-conscious now. June was a tigress in need of a warm shelter.

Firelord Zuko opened his eyes from his deep state of meditation at the intrusion before him and widened them just enough when he noticed that the noise had been propagated by none other than June, the bounty hunter.

"June? But how- are you alright?" he asked truly surprised. The enormous deja vu sight lost in the back of his memories only by the way she was gazing upon him.

A few hours ago, June had been shivering sporadically for the first half when he had carried her to the medicine man on his ship, before going completely limp from head to toe in an alarming way. He had almost thought she was done for.

And yet here she was, clearly healthily up and about, gazing at him with a look he had only seen one time in his short lifetime. And the Firelord was not sure what to think of it since such ogling had only come his way when he and his uncle had accidentally stumbled upon a particular district on the colonies, which sold questionable services to the many men browsing such caged goods. He might have or might have not had to pry his uncle from making a mistake that night.

There was no way he could have ever envisioned someone like June giving him that impish look, however. Mai didn't glance his way to that extent, not even when he knew that there were less than pure thoughts in her pretty, bun head. He had to admit, though, there were times when he thought she had come very close to.

But no, this was a leer that promised him covetous gratification, sinful activities at a becoming call. Well at least with the one eye that was not covered by her long, black hair. It was, to put it bluntly, licentious. It left him unbalance and on edge for a moment.

Surely he was over thinking it, however.

He halted his ministrations when he noticed that she had stopped chewing on her lips and was making her way to him incredibly slowly, almost as if savouring the movement with the clatter of her battle boots getting louder, while her hips swayed sensually with each delectable step.

"Ah, June?" He took careful note of her curling smile and that the top zipper of her specialised black silk battle dress had been opened to a dangerous all time low. Stopping only about a third of the way, doing very little to cover a substantial amount of the very traitorous and cavernous trench between her generous a-mounts.

As she got close, June began to undo the leather belts straps around her thin stomach, and like a true hunter searching for a weakness, never taking her eye off the target all the while. The leather belt straps served their purpose, of which was not that one at this particular time.

" What are you doing?" he asked again, a little more assertively.

The girl had removed the first belt and let it fall tentatively on the metal floor with a hard bang, the resistant surface making contact with the metal hinges and belt buckle of the discarded gear. She replied to his question sultrily, with her grin still plastered on.

"I want your hands all over me" she unclasped the second belt and Zuko had the decency of looking far more than a little shocked at such an implicating reply. But she continued.

"I want your  _hot_  burning fingers tips in every single crevice of my cold body" curiously, he heard the belt snapped off her waist line again in a single swipe before seeing it as she liberated it, and the silk dress stood hanging looser now by her precious female goods above her waist.

"I need you to burn your mark all around my flesh" she dragged the belt a bit on the ground as she walked, but dropped it soon after.

"I  _need_  you to caress me intimately in a way which your rich, warm palms are only capable of" she pulled her arms up to the skull shaped head clip which held her hair in a top-knot and removed it. And just as her hair fell and covered her already half-obscured face a little more, she had reached for him. Getting much closer, with her other hand, unable to take it anymore.

But the Firelord had gripped her leathered covered fingerless arm glove by the wrist tightly first before she could touch him when she came too close to him for comfort. The grasp was firm and it allowed her to go no further. By now, the Firelord had decided that this had gone far enough.

June stood right in front of him and she parted her lips slightly at the sudden intensity of the tight grapple. Her eyes glazed up suddenly, her fingers cracked and her knees almost gave out entirely as the head garment fell to the floor from her hand in a twisted clatter. She could feel that familiar ardent warmth etching itself across her entire arm once more.

_'Yes!'_

"That's enough June, snap out of it" He looked back at her with a few more wrinkles in his face than usual.

_'More, I want more!'_

The Firelord stood from his bed, gripping her arm solidly, even as it twitched. He had finally managed to recover from the complete and outer shock of her words and actions. What she was doing was staggering, to say the least.

June recovered slightly and then reached for his face with her other arm but he instantly snatched it too before it could get close to his cheek as she had intended.

At this, she felt yet another jolt of electric fire course her veins. It had become an increasingly divine feeling, reaching parts of her that brought more delight than she could have ever imagined.

"Stop this June" The night had been full of strange events, but this one took the cake by far. And somehow, in the pit of his stomach, he felt that this horrifying forethought wouldn't stop anytime soon. And that did very little to appease him "Why are you doing this!?"

June started to wriggle her cramping arms from his grip, but it was a feeble attempt at best. Zuko had his hand around hers firmly and he was not going to let go until he could figure this out. She herself was enjoying it enough that the movement only served to stimulate her further. But she replied his inquiry with the same sensuous sound nonetheless.

"Because…. _mi_ lord" she parted her rosy lips a little more than they needed to again when she played with his title "You're the one who will save me"

The young man was stunned where he stood at that unexpected announcement. And it was only in that one moment of utter surprise, that one second of complete shock that his grip wavered just enough for June to take the opportunity to press her entire body up against his own.

Coming only a few precious centimetres away from his lips before the Firelord was able to pull back that last millisecond. His hands gripped her wrists securely once more, but there was nothing he could do about the physical contact between them anymore.

June was left hanging like a wire on the verge of snapping trying to reach his lips, even as her heat rose to levels unknown to man at the sensation. And the Firelord finally found his will to act again.

Fine then, if June wanted to get physical, he would grant her that wish at least, whatever it was that was happening to her. She would play by  _his_  rules.

He spun her roughly around in one swift motion by the heels and held both her arms together behind her back once she was facing away from him.

" _Ahh!"_

"What kind of game are you trying to pull?" He snapped her forearms together tighter with his knuckles as he demanded answers from her harshly "And what do you mean I will save you? Answer me!"

He wouldn't have been acting this forcefully if he hadn't been so frustrated already. The young Firelord, after all, was not known for his serenity and calm behaviour in unexpecting situations. These last few months were most certainly  _not_  therapeutic. And they were not going as well as he thought they could of either. It also didn't help at all that the strain in his body, specifically in his shoulder didn't dissipate one bit, but rather, grew exponentially as each minute passed.

The crunching of her bones and squeezing of the muscles in her extremities brought June to a whimpering mewling like none other after the sudden arm restraint. She had practically shaken when he snapped his palms around her. Unable to even look at him, she didn't answer his question but was more rather writhing in the sensations he was unknowingly gifting to her.

Zuko crunched his face once more when she said nothing, and then brought her arms down further into double hammerlock when he noticed she had actually begun to move against him in a very suggesting manner. Even in her current situation, she  _still_  found pleasure in this?

"Naahhh!" She puled out instinctually.

"I said answer me!"

He was angry at what was happening, at the situation he was in, at being disturbed from his meditation, at the stress his body was reeling from all these long days of work. But most of all, he was furious that not much had gone right. His thoughts had been everywhere and he was feeling lost and confused without his uncle. Zuko the Firelord, it would seem, was destined to be remembered as the feeble shadow of a noble attempt to right the wrong. How in the world did he ever even become Firelord? How in the world was he going to fix  _this_?

June took a couple of much-needed breaths to calm her excitement and seemed to finally find her voice. She tilted her head down and more hair fell onto her face wildly, and she answered his demands.

"N-not a game Firelord, I swear. I…I don't know how to explain it properly, but I can't help it" She looked back up and glanced out the open doorway to what was suppose to be "her" room across the hallway "All I know is that there isn't a single fiber within my being that isn't crying out for you Firelord,  _my_  Firelord"

She tried to struggle against him meekly again but failed.

"Can't you feel it? It's your beautiful, wonderful  _warmth_. You're so full of life" she breathed out heavily, once again trying to free her arms but his grip was too strong, even for her "You are the one who will free me from the torment! You're the one! Help me! I need it, please!"

Zuko tried to hang on to her every word but he just couldn't make any sense out of them "What are you saying? Have you gone mad!"

The girl had begun to frantically struggle off his grasp, panting heavily "If I have, it is only because of you  _mi_ lord! _"_

June stopped suddenly and turned her head as far as she could towards his while being tightly held, and looked at him with an amorous stare.

Somewhere, deep down inside, June knew that it was entirely by his actions that she was acting like this. It was all because of him. Wholly, utterly and completely thanks to him that she had touched his shoulder when he seemed like he most needed it a few hours ago. She would have never done such a thing if she had not already been a part of the change he was irrevocably responsible for. A fully sociological, and even psychological transformation that was entirely alive exclusively because of his work. Not even the avatar's, or those damn ingrates who called themselves wise city elders, but his. He was the man behind it all. The peace treaties, the conferences, the meetings, the payoff, even the infamous speeches she had heard so much about. It was all him! She knew now, it had to be! It made so much sense, and it should have struck a chord to her when he came to give her money. Those little good things that started as simple acts of redemption, of kindness to broken down families across a forgotten village in the middle of nowhere would resonate in earth shaking quakes after tidal waves around the whole wide world. It was a movement that was based on the simplistic principal notion that good prevails best in the minimal conscious ripples of hopes. It was a reaction caused entirely by his actions.

Her eyes opened so wide they might have bulged out her cranium, the meaning of such a thing crashing into her in a final upheaval of realisation. Perhaps, it was because of the lack of small, tender things such as these, that June was caged like an animal into a lifeless black garden covered in thorny ivy iron bars for most of her wretched life. Enveloped in a cloak of hatred and lust for retaliation. Thirsty for the blood of her prey as she hunted them, who deserved to writhe along with her in the despair exuberating around her. Maybe because of that, she was able to instil complete terror in the hearts of the people while she rolled over her anguished filled, empty life.

And maybe, because  _he_  had brought these little good things back so selflessly, so thoroughly, she was able to reemerge from that gut wrenching experience.

He had made her this way now, even before she had ever touched his red fist so warmly and sensitively earlier in the night. That had just been the icing on the cake, the final ingredient to a very complicated recipe. It had been the awakening of the spore his action gave birth to, and which lived inside her heart.

June, the bloodthirsty bounty hunter would have  _never_ cared enough to try to listen to anyone's troubles, but she had tonight. Because of him.

He did this to her, and she couldn't deny it, she wouldn't deny it anymore. Because she loved that he did so.

But Zuko stood numbly at that declaration as he stared at her vacant but anticipating eyes. For it was a declaration of epic proportions. A statement that held more weight to it than even he could handle.

"Because of me?" he asked as he continued to stare at her. Though the question might as well had been rhetorical to the world. He was asking that to himself now.

And then the gears inside his head began to twist and turn at the total heaviness that statement held, what it meant to her. And it was messy and depressing.

Whatever had happened to her, whatever she was trying to achieve by enticing him, whatever was afflicting her tortured mind to do this madness. This must have been happening thanks to him. Or rather perhaps, more accurately, she was referring to  _his_  family, the ones who, probably destroyed hers.

Just like everyone's else's.

His blood froze ice cold, which was very unlike the Firelord of the Firenation. Zuko had no idea what kind of life she had been brought in, he had never bothered to ask, but given her very unique skill set of assets, he had always assumed that she had earned her spot as one of the most sought after bounty hunter and tracker through sheer will and determination. She possessed an impressive amount of strength for someone of her stature; both physical and in cunning. And had a natural knack for spotting things out of the ordinary faster than anyone else he knew, after all. Someone like her made her own luck.

His father had ruined many lives before though, and Azulon even more. He couldn't even begin to count the many distressing reports that he had found in the war chambers and library archives. He was disgusted beyond belief after only a few scrolls.

He didn't even bother with Sozin's grand plan to destroy the Aribenders.

But as he stared at her longing, desperate gaze, he was certain now that somewhere along the way, June had snared something else as well, that shook her very core. Something from the unforgiving actuality of a war pervaded hell.

And this had perhaps fractured her inside, with the culmination having caught up to her now that he was in her grasp. Undoubtedly it was at least a fair assumption, given the way she was acting towards him right now. He couldn't fathom anything less that could afflict and torment someone as strong willed as she. For all he knew, June could have just learned an awful truth about his and her ancestors.

This was all probably an act of retribution for her. If it was misguided or rightfully justifiable, though, he was not in the position to judge. Firelord Zuko, and the legacy of his family had a lot to answer for. He didn't need any other kind of proof to illustrate this to him, the evidence in the reports was all over the world.

But what could he offer her? He had already given her a substantial amount of fortune from his own wealth. They were, in fact, heading to do just that, hadn't that been enough? What else could she possibly want from him?

Throughout this, he had unconsciously let go of her and June took the opportunity to slowly turn again and face him. She was grinning and running her pale, fingers all along his torso. Eagerly reenergized, she was pawing at whatever she could get her hands on. There was no stopping her, June was relishing in the moment and in the feeling that was emanating from him, the warmth that was escaping him. And she was hoping that he had finally given in and grant her access to what she needed most.

Then she started grinding against him, demurely but undeniably. Perhaps in an innate way of affection that was just in primal and carnal need.

The Firelord had acted on impulse then at the very sudden intimate caressing, finally coming to his senses.

His face crunched, and the dark thoughts he had mulled over on his way to his room resurfacing and expanding. Maybe she saw this as an opportunity to get more out of him. And this was all a facade to make him think she was interested in him. Only for her to take advantage of him, allure him with her astounding, flawless beauty when he was most distressed and confused. The Firelord didn't know what her angle was on this, despite what might of have happened to her, her intentions could be ill and he doubted she would ever tell him the truth. He had to remind himself that June remained June and she owed no allegiances to no one but herself.

Vengeance, after all, had a way of stinging a man seduced by a fox disguised as a goddess where it hurt the most. And with his already shaken esteem, the poison would do a lot of damage to his wounded pride.

His  _honor_ _._

_Betrayal_

No, he couldn't do this to himself, much less to Mai and his land. They at least deserved better than this.

He snapped into action, the irritation returning to him, and grabbed her arms roughly while he tossed her off him unceremoniously to the other end of the room before she could begin to pull a piece of his armour off. As she fell into a heavy, loud heap of her own weight to her side, hitting the hard metal floor across from him, June howled in pain and surprise.

"Haaa!"

It took a moment for her to realise that he had pushed her off of him so sternly and decisively, that even she had trouble registering it until it was too late. June laid there in a jumbled mess under his form. Unable to comprehend what had happened until the pain in her hip and head jolted her. And she was suddenly reminded of that time when those bullies tossed her to the dirt ground aggressively. Only this time, even though she felt like it, she wasn't a little helpless girl with a ball, and the bully was the very personification of the boy she made friends with in school instead.

_Why!?_

She didn't even try to get up or to face him as her eyes began to water and her vision blurred "W-why!?"

There was desperation in her voice, the kind that resonated in quiet torture.

"Why won't you-" she choked. And then June did something that she hadn't done since it had become clear to her a very long time ago the things that she had to do to in order to survive into this ungrateful, uncaring world.

She wept. She coiled and she whimpered not so discretely at the dejection and how lost and alone she had felt yet again. June was like the stupid little hopeless beggar she had been once. This time, though, she knew the blood lust could no longer sate her thirst to feel  _alive_ ever again _._  It no longer called to her the way she wanted it, it no longer made her feel good, she didn't need it.

What she craved for was something more, something alive. His warm stroke, a soothing embrace, a caressing graze of skin. All she desired more than anything in the world was to be accepted, for once in her sorry, pitiful, hapless existence.

She couldn't understand why her life had been so different than everyone else's. She had screamed and cursed at the spirits and gods that watched over the cosmos for forsaking her to this unbridled, irrepressible destiny. A coffin known as June, the bloodthirsty bounty hunter.

What had she done to deserve this? Was she so obsolete that she didn't deserve to be happy? Would she ever reach that delightful crescendo she had only dared to dream on especially forsaken nights?

And as she was, June trembled more violently at the rapidly diminishing warmth leaving her shivering body and the loneliness that reemerged full force towards her. She could see the shadows cramming around her, toying with her reality, ridiculing her. With the hand of a demon spirit covering her once more. Greeting her like an old tormentor would a decrepit victim it found again, ensnaring her in an icy trap that secluded her from the rest of what little remained human in her. And left her naked into a prolonged abyss, faithless, and hopeless.

_'No!, no no no!'_ June held her hands to her head as she continued to sob, now more uncontrollably than ever.

_'Not again! No, I-I won't let you!'_ the creature that had emerged was one that would sooner drown on her own blood than let the suffering overtake her again.

A quivering, and wrecking crying girl took possession of her and frantically unsheathed a hidden, sharp blade from a concealed pouch on her back and decided then and there, that maybe the darkness that awaited her in the spirit world would have more mercy on her overly punished soul there than the one she had wrought upon herself on this living hellish nightmare.

Zuko watched with increasing astound while the events deteriorated by the second right before him. He could almost not believe what he had done to June. It had been purely out of anger and instinct that he had acted the way he did. And the guilt that followed after him as she sobbed and shuddered on the ground like an abandoned child pierced at his heart deeply. But he was almost rendered speechless at what she was about to do with that sharp weapon.

There wasn't a moment to think as he leapt with all the strength he could muster at her direction.

Her hands shook as the knife rested on her jugular. There was no murmured prayer nor soundless requiem that she wanted to give to herself, there was no time to grieve for this moment, she knew that she was unwanted. There was no one in the living world who would remember her. She would have done this a long time ago had the darkness that clothed her before not denied her. Not even her innate urge for survival or miserable cowardice, but for the demon which forced her down as she cried in disdain for countless moons, halting her while embracing and counselling her to commit further acts of abominable, abysmal destruction.

She thought she would be free, and if she couldn't then she would at least take this opportunity to allow mercy on herself.

Yet this shiny, short shiv had only managed to fall down with a cluttering clap. Piercing the solid ironed floor before falling on its side, right next to a small pool of her spilt tears, forgotten again.

Her head had then been pressed to the metal wall as both of her hands once again came to being overtaken by the lord of fire himself.

The Firelord gazed upon June's startling eyes with a serious composure. Having stopped her from committing a very grave mistake that neither he nor she would have been able to revert once it had taken its course.

He let his gaze drop to the surface ripple in her flawless bleached skin around her neck, and the tickling contrast of her blood that was slowly pooling in that valley between her cushioning mountains.

He looked back at her "June, why would you try to-" He couldn't finish that sentence, he couldn't fathom what possessed her to do this.

The leather clapped earth kingdom huntress said nothing, she couldn't speak nor react. She didn't even seem to relax but continued to shiver desperately while he gripped her, he could not only see it, but he felt it under him. It was as if she was hovering between life and death inside of a damp cave on a snowy, winter's night right in the north pole.

Completely lost at what to do.

A situation which Zuko could remember happening to him all too well during his time in exile. Specifically, at the northern water tribe.

He grumbled loudly. And considered going to fetch his guards but Agni only knew what the trembling girl below him would try to do in the meanwhile. The situation had indeed gone to hell and he could not risk leaving now. Shouting wouldn't help either, as this section of the ship had been effectively left alone now, rather ironically and unintentionally, for his sake.

_'Great'_  he thought, once again cursing that decision for the second time.

It was clear to him now at least, that the young woman was unsettled to a dangerous degree. He was not an expert at this by a long shot, but if he had taken anything out of his uncle during those, now greatly missed, times together. It was that at the very least, a very wise man would try to alleviate a desperate situation instead of escalating it further. Specifically, by attempting to be gentle.

He then sighed and decided to try to get June out of her catatonic stupor "Calm down alright, I'm not gonna hurt you, so please don't hurt yourself" He tentatively let go of her arms but kept them ready in case she decided to spring up again.

"I'm…I'm sorry about that" the Firelord berated himself for thinking that June was doing this to take advantage of him, in some kind of act of revenge. Those were not the actions of a woman who wanted to exploit, blackmail, punish or even humiliate him. If anything, her quavering posture only spelt a desperation that bordered on aspiration. What that was, though, he couldn't say.

He decided to get up and try to help her to her feet as well, to try and figure this out, but June tugged on his left sleeve as he made the move.

"Please..." she whispered.

It was not a simple request.

"Please" there was an earnest begging in her voice, this time much louder "You're the only one, please..."

Zuko could not help but let the guilt in his heart wrangle up his face again at the sight in front of him, even though he still wasn't quite sure what she meant, June was a wrecking, pitiful mess. The black makeup around her eyes was nearly gone, smeared downwards as the tears leaked freshly over the previous dark stained ones, further down her cheeks towards her jaw bone and into her onix dress. And the supplication in her eyes spoke a thousand words in tongues to him, begging him to understand, but Zuko could only translate so few.

"June"

The older teen's bit down on her flushed lips trying to clutch them together, but only stuttering as they fluttered. Taking a hold of his shoulders in desperation.

"Y-you're the only one, please! You can help me! Save me PLEASE!" her pleadings were not accusatory, nor were they demanding. They were a call for mercy. An implored gasp for breath. A breath that cried to his leadership as Firelord to take action once again at an animal that had been caged for far too long, and was hanging on the brim of despair for a chance to  _live_.

And the Firelord, being many things, could not deny her. He had learned a lot of things in his short life, a great many things. Some of which came with harsh, even deadly trials of both flesh and empathic displays of humanity and humility, often without reward. He was not an unfair man, despite having been brought up to being one. Firelord Zuko wanted to be all the things that his father never was, and he had aspired, more than anything now, to bring peace and justice to the wreck that was left behind before him.

June was obviously perturbed profoundly, anyone in his position who had just bared witness to such a display of utter hopelessness would have come up with that rational conclusion.

A strange wave of familiarity nibbled at his heart when he had felt he reached a crossroads again.

The Firelord didn't know much about her personal life, but he decided, like she did to him earlier in the bunker, that he would reach out to her and her problems and do what he could within his power to allay her agony. He could not refuse anyone who asked so severely for help. Maybe the old he would ponder it, but not the one that he was now. Not the one he had worked so hard to become.

So he reached out and held her right cheek with his hand "How..."

And he had almost felt like he was looking at the mirror of his past doings when those words left his mouth.

Had the young overachieving hunter girl indeed gone through a metal transmutation or was she simply becoming deranged? Maybe he hadn't discerned more clearly what had happened to her earlier when she lost consciousness. June had been her usual sardonic witty self until he had noticed her lazy pupils and dampening brow far too late, he had been staring at the ceiling the whole time after all.

June didn't skip a single beat as soon as the words left him and quickly gripped his hand and arm like one would a lifeline while they hung from a cliff. She snuggled her face at his hot touch and breathed in his scent "Take me my Firelord, that's all I want, that's all I need. Make me feel like I am actually worth something. I want to know what real warmth feels like from the man that has brought me back"

Zuko watched her with a slight flush in the face as she said this. Never mind the way she had said it while she adoringly massaged the back of his palm with her damp white cheek. Although given the circumstance that had played out in the past minutes, he supposed that he should of more than have expected an answer like that.

There was no disillusion, no hate, nor any other apprehensible mischievous plots in her features as she said it, though. Just  _need_.

She was a woman who just wanted a good  _thrusting_ because he brought her back? What in the world did that mean? Maybe the Firelord didn't know June after all. But then again, there weren't a lot of people in this world that he could genuinely say he knew well. Even Mai gave him a hard time with her gloom that he just couldn't logically contemplate her musings coherently sometimes.

He composed himself again though and tried one last time to consider that she didn't actually mean what he thought she meant and that she was perhaps still a little addled.

"Take you? We're already sailing to Firefly city, where else do you want to go?"

June's response wasn't what he had expected at all. But with undeniable manoeuvring, hovered his self-caressing hand to her left, firm, and supple gelatinous cushion of fat. All the while some of the drying blood that had trickled down stained his thumb on the way.

She pressed his palm around it and leered at him with another one of those needy gazes, there was no way she could stifle the moan that escaped her vocal cords as his electric fire shook her to life once more, and to places in her physique that were really starting to itch chronically by this point. She had made sure that the lord of fire would notice both what she felt and what she wanted.

And sure enough, the Firelord sighed after the heavy intake that had suddenly built itself on his lungs.

His hot breath made her half exposed, blood etched chess heave and shiver. She closed her eyes at the sensation, that even though unintended, brought just as much sinful pleasure. There were things that had been forming in her mind from the moment that she had started to strip for him earlier, and she could not wait anymore to make them become more than just a fantasy. Those  _things_  were in a list on a long sheet that she prayed, once she brought cookies and milk, he could gift them to her.

"Listen, you really need to tell me why you would want me to do this to you" He didn't suspect her anymore after the display of total, uninhibited weakness. But this Firelord was not about to indulge in the carnal desires of the flesh without a damn good reason behind it. And at this point, he really needed that reason to work itself inside the traffic of his nerves. Because his right hand was not listening to him when he tried to pull away from the grip she delicately held on her candy mountain. And he had felt that there was nothing she could do about the tip of that mountain either, which wanted to be nothing less that a poking, engorged and proud standing tip beneath his seething hot palm.

He grunted. The tension being uninhibitedly raised was jumbling his composure.

June did nothing to appease those nerves, though, in fact, the complete opposite. He had to swallow hard when she brought her other extremity to pull down the zipper of her black battle silky dress further down when she decided to respond "Everything that you are, and everything that you have accomplished has changed people" she reached the end of the journey and began to unclasped the buttons of her dress.

"What?" it would only take a small gesture of his sweating palm to completely expose her open to the world by now. He was still in place, though, unable to move even if it was to back away from his grip on her chest.

All the buttons off, the dress now dangled completely loose on her. It had become nothing more than a piece of cloth with holes on her frame, a blanket cloak of sorts. In which all that was needed was but a slight tug for gravity to do its job.

And gravity did its job well all the time.

"I don't know what happened to you since we last met, but you have become the very thing that we all sorely needed" June began to wiggle her shoulders dangerously as if to shrug off a piece of clothing that bothered her.

"I can't explain it, I was never good at this spiritual shit anyway, but somehow I knew. When we-" the impromptus leathered poncho very slowly slid off her left shoulder "when  _I_ grabbed you, I felt it" She gazed deeply into his eyes.

There they sat, with her still leaning against the cold, almost red wall as he crouched frozen in front of her with her hands atop his groping one.

June smiled a smile that brought a hidden soft mirth to her eyes. A smile that betrayed the black stains on her face, and the sorrow which she had just felt. She didn't even know it then but she began to start to feel truly merry, and not just lust, as he touched her "I feel it even now my Firelord, I feel your warm fire coursing, penetrating through my heart, and it makes me-" she stuttered again, trying to find the right word. The Firelord could not mistake the sudden heartbeat bump that reverberated through that succulent sensuous tissue of fat, perhaps it was his own, though.

And she could not deny the elongated grin that spread about her cheeks either, nor the fresh tears that cascaded down once again. These ones of a completely different emotion.

"It makes me, ha…h-happy"

Zuko had to admit she was getting pretty warm, even as her face started to rise in color, and became breathtakingly beautiful upon the candle light while she smiled and confessed this. The heat which exuberated from her was incredible. Her touch was once again soothing and pleasant. This was what he had felt when she grabbed his hand last night. It didn't affect him much, but the extra heat was not something he would not unwelcome at all.

His mother had told him that the most important trait for a Firebender was a coursing passion. She had told him once a story of how that emotion was often channelled mistakenly by Firebenders the wrong way. They let their negative, aggressive feelings and heated rage fuel their bending. Fury was a powerful tool to use if one wanted to submit others to their bidding.

He had never truly contemplated much else about it until the dragon masters helped him escape the cycle of dread that halted both his fire bending potentials as well as personal spiritual growth.  _Compassion_  it would seem, was also a powerful vehicle to all important  _life_.

And what better way to show compassion, then through simple acts of pure kindness, and care.

"You did this to me" she repeated as he came back from his reverie. She recoiled from under him in arousal, and his grip was just about the only thing that stopped her from being totally topless in his presence "And I couldn't be happier that you did. Please...please milord, take me. I am  _more_  than ready"

Zuko wanted to say no, that this was wrong in every way. Because, technically, it was. The Firelord of the newly instituted democratic Firenation could not just go around and, well, take whatever it was that he wanted. If he did, it would be nothing short of paradoxical to the message he was trying to convey, as he had more than just an image to preserve, which was by itself irrevocably important to keep. Peace and progress demanded it. He was not a tyrant like his father and grandfather before him, and his regal status needed to remain impeccable for as long as possible too, never mind his own personal moral obligations and beliefs.

And while not married, people would one day expect him to raise strong children and secure his legacy in a highly esteemed family for the future of the nation. To keep discord and injustice at bay. The Firelord had already decided that if he was going to take that road,  _when_  he had to take it, he was going to do it with the young Mai, the current love of his life.

June was an exotic beauty with a striking personality. At least to those who were enamoured with the persona. Apparently, the other side of her coin was just as provocative and fascinating, if not a bit unstable. He had to give her credit for her achievements, though, despite everything. Many perhaps in her situation would've been dead and gone a long time ago.

But he was not the kind of man that would take someone in that way, especially if they still had their maidenhood intact and then act like nothing had ever occurred, even if they didn't care for it. And he could not simply just  _take_  multiple spouses either, even if he was Firelord. That was Aang's protocol, he had the reason to because of his very unique situation.

Zuko mentally chuckled at that. Aang was unique in quite a lot of situations.

He took hold of her bare shoulder with his other hand and held her still "And what makes you think that doing it would ultimately help you?"

The Firelord then unconsciously grazed his thumb on the shoulder and continued "I mean, I can feel it too June, it's like a heartbeat, my bending is wrangling up my skin and I almost feel like I could singe you with it, but making love to you would-" he stopped himself from saying  _not_.

There was realisation dawning on him.

June could not help it for the life of her, she purred as he gripped her harder by accident and held a nail to her teeth "There is only one way that you can complete me my lord" she encouraged him "my loins have been  _begging_  me to reach out to you"

By the spirits, if the fire fucking lord could not do it, then who could?

The thought that he could burn, even brand her did little to appease his rapidly growing issue at hand too. Such thoughts were mundane for him, and yet the ultimate sacrifice, it would seem was not dealt with in the end.

Even the ancient manuscripts at the old temple of the Fire Sages would argue that a firebender's life starts only through some sort of spiritual divinity. In which young firebending boys and girls were thought aroused from an extraordinary attunement each and every one of them were gifted with when they were born.

The voice of his mother spoke to him in the distance, and the dragons drew scorching breath upon him once more, making him see the difference again.

The girl needed to be loved, not just cared for. And she needed to feel his essence break into her in the most intimate, life-giving way.

She had to become cinder to his flame.

And if he was not the fire-breathing, firebending dragon master that he had claimed to be, then that elixir of life that fueled his people with a roaring fire of  _passion_  would undoubtedly, one day seize to exist.

As a leader, and as a man, he could not let that happen under his rule. The strength of a nation, and fundamentally the world depended on his ability to remain loyal to the true convictions of what it meant to be of the people that would serve once again, as it had undoubtedly happened in the forgotten past, as the beacon of love and compassion.

He continued to hold her in place as he thought this, and June did nothing to stop him because she would do what anyone in her lone, dejected position would if presented with a gift that promised gratifying salvation. She had already given up on everything except him, and when he pushed her off her, she had thought that she had lost her life force, feeling like he had never wanted her in the first place.

The way he was forcing her in place, while he battled with himself. With his refined and oh so hot strong hands which benevolently seemed to caress her being in ways that she could have never had dreamt of. She could do nothing else but submit to him all this time, waiting and hoping for him to do what she most desired than anything else.

And it was right there and then, that the Firelord decided that he had to use his executive power to ease the wanton pain which spilt off of the previously sobbing teen.

He hoped that Mai would not hate him forever for this, but he had a duty to the world, and he was on duty right now. He could not let June suffer anymore if he could help it.

"You've ever done this before?" The Firelord finally let go of her and her battle dress turned-blanket fell to her hips instantly in a wrangled mess, trapping her arms underneath it.

June felt the cold overtake her again when she lost the exhilarating heat from his hand as she sat there presenting herself bare to his critical eye, but answered with a shivering groan nonetheless "No, I've never let a man touch me in this way before, and if it's not you, I never will. Please milord"

The girl was heaving her most ripe fruits of nature in front of Zuko and he would have been a fool if he had ignored how much they bounced and pleaded for his sole attention.

"Take me"

He grumbled a sigh again and finally gave in to her overly saturated obvious endeavours to entice him with as many alluring weapons that were available to her "Fine June, if it'll help you, somehow, if my skills can do it, I'll make love to you"

The caves of two lovers could not beam brighter at the happiness that emerged from within her at that proclamation. She could not help bringing herself forward to him, and he didn't do a thing to stop her, from brushing those rosy red full lips against his coarse ones.

The song of life was attuning itself into her heart strings. And it was a melody that she could not describe at all into mundane words. She supposed that if one word did come up to her brain, though, as she sucked on his lips and tongue, it would be that she was feeling the  _burn._  And she continued to massage, lick, gobble and roughly take his mouth into hers as long as she could possibly be allowed to. June wanted to syphon every warm sensation she could handle. It would seem that her Firelord was being most generous with this too.

He was not an expert at kissing himself, but Zuko had had more than enough training in that department because of his girlfriend. They've never had intercourse but the amount of shagging that transpired when the two really got it going was something else indeed. She could be insatiable when long enough periods of time stretched without them seeing each other.

_'_ _Damn it_ _all'_  he cursed again, why did June and Mai had to be so dourly similar, and now that she was slurping his saliva like a wild thirsty animal that hadn't had a drink in days, he wondered what he had gotten himself into.

He did not want to envision Mai as he...well...with June.

So he decided that he was going to take the initiative and not let this get out of hand more than it needed to. He was not Firelord for nothing, and as he had told himself once, a Firelord was a commander in every sense of the word. Sometimes that mean he had to be assertive.

He cupped handfuls of both of her succulent pale but slowly blushing mammaries and squeezed then roughly, testing every milky textural muscle into his simmering palms.

The Firelord would have his time with Mai later, he would make sure of it. But right now...

"F-Fuck!" well he supposed the reaction could have been a bit more modest. Given the situation, however, he would excuse her.

"Ahh yes!"

June wailed like a kitty in heat, this is exactly what she needed. The sexual tension that needed to be released after so long was finally starting to ease. Yes, June needed more of his fondling, menacing hands.

"More my lord, make me yours"

Firelord Zuko felt emboldened by her words, and if the shudder of pleasure that quaked down her body enough to jounce those large breasts was any indication, he had a positive anticipation of what would transpire for the rest of the night.

He would take his time with June, after all, it was both of their first time doing this most sacred and intimate act of love, and he wanted it to be at least somewhat special.

So he took her soft hips and lifted her to the wall. Then pressed himself roughly on her body as he sucked on her neck against the metal wall. Giving her, perhaps, a little bit of a payback for earlier.

The earth kingdom huntress gasped for breath and spilt onto herself for the fifth time that night. The smell of her arousal had become copiously pungent by now, and she could feel her inner thighs sticking to her wet underthings as he pressed his knee into her, invading her private valley.

Zuko was not unaware of this fact and he could smell the distinct feminine fragrance ride up his nostrils. This was the unquestionable proof to him that this girl was singularly, as she had declared so shamelessly to him,  _more_  than ready for him. She was luring him in with her body and her undeniable sexual pheromones, there was no other way to describe it.

"I can  _smell_  it June" he suddenly and out of nowhere breathed into her and stopped groping her hips while he looked at her otherworldly expression. He inhaled her eloquent aroma with no penitence.

Then he glanced at her jiggling cleavage while he decided to slam her hands above her head, making her wail in ecstasy. Both teats looked positively ready to explode on her rather large fun bags as they reached the peak of engorgement. Their perky pinky stature ached while they remained unprotected and uncared for on the cold breeze of a metal monster they were currently on.

Surely such was the result of the cold autumn draft that crept into the steely ship.

"I can  _see_  it too" the girl had felt torture beyond despair, but the fireman cloaking her frame was introducing her to a dimension of desertion which promised to leave her hanging in the air for eternity. And hanging she was, as he locked his grip on her arms while she tried with all her might to make him cup her again, to feel his warmth.

Yes, the Firelord was a merciful, benign figure, and he snaked one hand from his grip down pass her midnight black hair to her parting lips, only for her to catch him by surprise and suck on his thumb succulently, and without remorse. He pulled his wet finger off with an audible  _'pop'_ of her lips while they had meekly struggled to keep him there, and then pressed them to the blood of her collarbone as his smeared path continued downward to her left areola. The Firelord circled on  _'o'_  shape around and abound this reddening spot and if even possible, cause her erect nipple to stand out even more.

"And I can  _feel_  you" he whispered again in her ear, getting closer. He knew he didn't need to entice her at all since she had taken care of that all by herself already. But he would be forgetting his duties if he didn't have her beg for him  _even_  more.

He could hear her raspy intake and outtake of breath every second that he traced his index in the areola, and she was whimpering and shivering every one of those seconds that passed.

Her eyes finally rolled and she cried a deep moan of pleasure when he brushed her swelled up nipple tip ever so slightly. She couldn't count and she couldn't care less about the times her inner walls had made her shudder into the stars.

"Ohhhh!  _Noo!"_

Zuko looked further down and wondered when she had started to rub her legs together so prominently like that without him noticing. It was making short work of her battle dress, though, and soon it fell to her feet to be forgotten.

Gravity always did its work well after all.

Without a doubt, he could clearly see the results of his  _mis_ treatments sprouting. There was no question where that smell was coming from now. She was drenched in fluids that glistened exponentially the more she unconsciously rubbed her irritation. And those squelching and sinful sounds which escaped them were an undeniable sign that her faucet had been left open and ignored for quite some time now.

Perhaps a few hours ago, such a display of carnal need would have left a very poor impression on the Firelord and his prospects for a successful civic transaction with June. As the seconds wondered by, however, the fiery boy found himself struggling to keep himself in check.

He had really not been expecting this royal welcoming towards him, and he would know of such things.

June had calmed down from her ride to heaven and was so delighted to see that her lord of fire was charmed at her lasciviousness. She hadn't intended to be so wet, she herself didn't even know how moist she could get. But how could she have stopped it anyway? There was a certain way that these things happened, June could only suppose that she was a healthy young woman who excreted healthy amounts of fluidity when the time was needed.

She looked down at the noticeable pocket of vengeance from her Firelord's tunic. He had heavy weaved war robes on and armour plates covered certain parts of his body. The strain made her wonder how he could pull off such heavenly wonders on her lecherous body while having to deal with a burden like that. But then again she didn't really know how a man coped with something of the like, she was a young lady after all. And as such, June would be more than willing to service and relieve  _any_  hefty amount of load that he desired.

Oh, how she wished she could help relieve it so.

But June was tied by his dominant hand gripping her long gloved wrists, hot enough to scorch right through to it into her waiting skin, hot enough that his fingers might just brand her wrist.

"My Firelord, aren't you pain? Would you like me to alleviate you?" she cooed as she leered at that particular direction of his body.

The Firelord snapped from his admiration at her query and realised where she was gazing at. He saw her lick her lips in a hidden libidinous anticipation. He grazed his eyes toward her half naked presence as he responded.

"Don't worry, we'll get to that soon June, believe me" He let go of the vice on her arms and continued in a Firelordly demanding tone "Now, I want you to continue where you left off earlier"

He settled into his commanding mantle of authority again. The Firelord had found during his reign as chief that in situations which proved to be especially awkward, he could always find a resort in the power and respect that was demanded behind his title to unearth solutions of the calamities of ruling a troubled nation. It was in his blood after all, and even as a prince, he has always exerted some degree of authority and demanded equal obedience from his subjects.

He walked to the door and snapped it closed and then retreated back to his bed, sitting comfortably with his elbow on his knee and knuckle on his cheek as he stared at her half exposed body.

"Continue to strip June" He ordered her. The Firelord had to admit, if there was at least one thing that had made him excited about her lack of chastity these past minutes, it was her bold manoeuvring around the fabric of her clothes. It was indecent and rattling, but he had a growing problem that needed to be properly nourished before they would together perform such salacious acts.

June became a vixen immediately as those words left his lips. The Firelord had found excitement in her ministrations and this brought delight to her, as his approval to her concupiscent behaviour of lust brought her own gleeful euphoria.

She leered at him and traced her index to the stretch mark in between her toned stomach before she strolled sensually towards him once more.

Zuko observed with hidden mirth as the bounce of her cleavage seemed to be about the only thing gravity struggled on this night. They were so firm, plump and yet big enough to have spilt even around both his own large hands when he had forced them into her on the wall.

All the while she began to pull her long bang off her other eye just enough to only leave a few strands in front of it. She wanted to properly watch him watch her as the display of libidinous need danced around between the two of them. June knew she had a gifted rack on her, and she was proud of it. Most women who had one would whine and complain like the little girls they are about the extra strain to their pathetically weak backs, but June was not a trained and well-versed huntress for no reason. Her back could take the hit, and in fact, her feminine jugs served as an extra natural weight that helped her stay fit during training days.

When she had reached him, she leant closed and pulled one leg next to his relaxed thigh as she began unbuckling her boot. His face and her hanging handfuls were but mere inches between each other.

The lord of fire remained still, almost as if hypnotised again by the swinging. Her nips, he noticed, had remained painfully swollen.

How was  _she_ pulling off such celestial wonders on him with a cargo on her like that?

She pulled the boot off and tossed it aside as she placed her other leg to his side once she balanced herself again to do the same on the remaining hide boot.

The injury on her neck had dissipated somewhat but the Firelord noticed that it would open up slightly and drip red the more she strained her neck at her actions. It looked very painful, he would venture to guess that a bounty hunter with a clavier such as June's would always take care of her weapons well.

But this would not do, he couldn't have her gushing out blood and rushing down her body.

June finished unbuckling the other footwear and was about to get rid of it also but the Firelord had decided that he wanted to taste the goods again.

She hissed as he guzzled on her injury, the boot slid to the ground without her even forcing it. Zuko was going to slather this part of her body well before it would get out of control. At the moment, he only needed one, and only one valve turned on her enthusiastic body.

Her closed eyes softened when she realised what he was trying to do and she could not help the deep moan that escaped her at the romantic display of care.

"Mmmmm"

It wasn't enough that she was burning up with every scorching, seething touch, he just had to pamper her again like he had meant to jump start her already satisfied being. It excited her so, especially when he forced her head in place by her tangled hair as he took her in.

"Yeah, ohhh" or perhaps maybe it was her old self-twirling and twisting up inside her at the feeling of having the lord of fire play with her blood in ways only she had done so to others.

He finished up and thought that maybe acting like some sort blood thirty sadist was not such a good idea after all. But he did have to  _plug_  her up somehow before the main course. He supposed, though, that the rich iron flavour of the spilt red liquid was not that bad, considering how many times he had the misfortune of having to taste it himself when he got smacked around during his many adventures.

He spat it out, there were other things he wanted to taste.

But he was dead wrong if he was the only one in the room who had thought of that first.

June heaved again and again as the Firelord backed off to his previous sitting posture, which was not that different than the one he had taken before anyway. He shot a glance at her heavy lids and spoke once more.

"You should turn around" June understood the command and could barely nod her pretty excited and lust fill head.

She rotated and leant forward to an angle that brought up her rear natural assets for a closer, clearer inspection to the face of the lord of the firenation.

And he said nothing, even as her perfumed spoor blasted up to his nose tenfold, down his gullet and to his lungs, or even as she hooked her fingertips on the side of her black pants and slowly slid them over those wide, salacious hips of hers. Slowly, they snapped over her apple shaped rear and fell down to her knees.

No, he had to keep himself in check, as much as his other  _he_  was telling him not to.

Though once again, it was near impossible with such a marvellous tight plum being just inches from his face. This girl knew how to entice him well, he figured she was naturally gifted at quite a lot things. June couldn't possibly ever have been a good girl. Perhaps he should test that theory however, he didn't want to jump to conclusions as of yet, considering what had happened before.

The sweat that had glittered on her skin was indeed not the only secretion cascading out in rapid successions. He couldn't be sure how severely before, but the proof was in  _her_  pudding and the Firelord should be banished for doubting even for a second.

June writhed her pants off of her feet while she remained slanted, and Zuko gazed even closer at the drenched, moistened flimsy undercloth adorning her rear end.

And what a rear end it was. It would be a grave mistake if he didn't pay more attention to it. They were pale, just like the rest of her, and gloriously sumptuous. He didn't have anything to compare them to, but if he could say anything, it would be that they were ripe for the taking. A perfectly carved, freshly plucked apple.

Yes, it was hard to ignore them, even if he was constantly being enthralled by that inviting and sopping snatch which clutched the thin cloth between her inner thighs. They clung to her and outlined the clear indentations and definitions which lectured the Firelord prominently and undeniably, that she was a woman  _all_  around.

The girl was burning up, she could have been in a sauna and it would have been cooler. She put her hands once again on her hips but this time onto the last piece of barrier between her Fireman and her saturated, dripping wet core. She turned to face him as she brought the improvised lacy, black underwear down. June wanted to see him the moment she showcased what she was to his critical eye. How he reacted now would greatly influence how her near future would shape into.

And June had never been gladder that she groomed herself well each week. She was always of the mind, as her maturity reached her, in which she'd rather feel very clean and beautiful whenever she had to go relieve herself in the toilets.

The Firelord's nose twitched again at the strong odour and the obscene sight before him. Her secreting organ convulsed and spilt abundant, clear liquid down her inner thigh. But he remained speechless and unmoving as he observed her strip to her base.

He waited a little more, only for her to bend even more as her knees buckled together in an attempt to ease the drenched undergarment off her long, slender legs. She took it off and with one kick of her foot tossed it aside. June wasn't sure why he had looked like he gave a damn one way or another, but she was just happy that he hadn't pushed her off him yet like last time.

Plus the prominent pocket in his own robes spoke far more than anything he could say.

She looked back again at him and he raised his eyebrow as she began to wiggle and swivel her white tooshy in playful anticipation, beckoning him to do what he so easily could do at any given moment. June herself would do what had to be done to have him penetrate and ravish her deeply and wholly.

She snaked her index and middle fingers down her tone stomach over her reddening mount and parted her outer, then nether lips open. Exposing herself to him as she continued to squirm and shake her derriere debauchedly. While she did this, she had inadvertently grazed the muffin bottom below her hood.

"Haaaa!"

Zuko took her hips and stopped her from further gyrating where she was slanted.

"June, your filthy  _sex_ and  _posterior_  are right on my face" One of his thumbs drifted to the thinly black strip over her nub and traced it down to it.

Her knees contorted and gave, she yelled in ecstasy while her fluttering inner walls blasted vaginal fluids aplenty. She would have fallen face first if the Fire breathing dragon behind her hadn't held her by the hip and abdomen.

He took her in his arms and she sat on his lap, fighting a mighty battle to remain conscious. She didn't know if he had seared her clitoris with his finger, but the numbing that remained was otherworldly. How could he provide such delicious sensations to her? June was like hot butter to his knife, she was the mold and he the sculptor.

He took this moment to repeat the motion she had done not too long ago to her stomach and traced the same flaming fingertip over her flat, skinny ab lines, stopping here and there. Tickling her bellybutton and teasing her pubic bone.

Zuko would not have this girl display her cunt and rosebud so lewdly in front of him without dire ramifications. He had asked for her to strip with her back to him to give her some small amount of dignity. But of course, June had taken the opportunity to yet again use every weapon in her bodacious arsenal to bewitch him into losing his self-control.

And she had succeeded, profoundly. He grumbled on her neck while he took it with his mouth anew, he was going to have to show her again who was the one in charge here.

He pushed a finger in her frontal opening roughly and the gush that escaped poured onto his tunic and his bed sheet.

"Ahhhhh!" he kept her from thrusting forward too much with a firm grip around her abdomen.

June was crying, gasping and whimpering because he was branding her inners as he ate her neck. The amount of satisfaction was once more leaving her floating next to the stars.

"M-m-more my liege!" she managed to stammer. There was drool seeping out of her exposed tongue. This was what she wanted, and every moment that passed she only wanted more.

He pushed deeper in with another finger and massaged the spores inside her in a spinning motion. His fingers were instantly clutched "I'm going to teach you and your dirty vagina a lesson on dignity, and I'm going to show you how this is suppose to happen"

He was bluffing of course, he had next to no idea what he was doing. But his innate male instincts were, at this point, taking over his mind. Whatever he was going to do next was going to be ruled purely on this and on his commanding superintending supremacy. It helped quite a lot that the squirming and teetering girl in his arms was absolutely loving it.

To June however, the word loving was rapidly being eclipsed by some type of quantum unknown other thing that was taking her from the fringe of desperation to ardent solicitous stupidity.

She could not hold back anymore, her bubbly rump rubbed his covered thick pole and she drooled out her needs further "Yes fuck me Firelord! Take me as yours! Haaa!"

The Firelord cupped one heaving breast with another hand and pinched a teat outwards. And June lost it again as he held it.

"There will be time for that too, but for now" He sank his teeth on her right shoulder and she hollered more "Get on your knees"

He was certain that his angry, growing problem by now would tear right through to his armour plating and needed expert relief off of it. But why do it himself, when he had a willing, breathing siren at his beckoning call. One who already was doing everything possible, to impale herself with him still clothed.

June would have indeed loved to comply once more to his just request, but he was making it terribly difficult with his fingers in her privates. Her body was not listening anymore, and she would have said something if her tongue had not been wrangled up in her throat and sticking out of her mouth. She was held by his influence, haunted by his doting embrace, spoiled by his unbridled attention.

She babbled in response, and more saliva fell on the metallic refined iron floor.

And the Firelord could not help but chuckle up against her nape as he pushed both of his malevolent and intruding digits further in while pinching her explosive nip at the same time. Her struggling was music to his ears now, but he really needed her to get to work.

"Urrrhhh!"

He took pity on her and removed the invasion from her lusciously sparkling form after only a little more fondling. And just as soon as he did so, June's body slumped against his in a panting wet heap.

"Now then" he let go of her and she fell forward. And as she did, it was only thanks to a desperate natural reflex which came from years of practice that she found her palms and knees on the ground to halt a face plant first into it "I think it's time for you to  _alleviate_  me from my pain June"

The gothic girl licked her lips and rubbed the sweat off her eyelids. She then turned around on her knees to face him as he commanded. Or rather to be more clear, to face his crotch section. She took a tender arm and began to fumble with the pelvic copper plating hugging his waist.

Zuko decided that he would help as well. He removed his armour from his chest by taking the armlets and shoulder pads off first, then the torso piece. He took it upon himself to notice how flushed June's face had gotten the more this continued, and the shivering of her hands increased as the copper piece fell off her hands to the floor in a clatter all of the sudden.

June's eyes scanned the large protuberance as it became more noticeable on the thickly weaved war robes that covered him. Even with such hindrance on, it could not stop, what was undeniably his own mount.

She wanted to taste him and take him in her mouth and have him fashion it to his girth. The mere thought of it grinding inside her inner jaws and down her gullet, left it very dry. She took a second to compose herself as her excitement rose to high tides again, then she released the belt buckle around his waist with unsteady hands, all the while never taking her eyes of his pyramid.

There was no snap of another leathered belt leaving another waist this time though, June's mind was numb with craving need and she had a lot of trouble not pawning him right then and there while he still had his royal reinforced silk fabric on him.

No, June might have been a bad girl for most of her life, but she would rather spill blood again than have him toss her off because of her animalistic behaviour. She would be a good girl and listen to him. And however lust filled her eyes shone in the darkened room, or however overly lubricated her inner thighs squelched tougether as she rubbed them, she would do what any good girl would do when sweets were promised to her.

"My Firelord wishes for me to service him?" she cooed at him coquettishly while remaining on her knees, placing the belt next to him on the bed once it was off.

Zuko grabbed a creeping hair bang out of her way and held her chin afterwards "No,  _you_  want to service me"

They were of course, both right.

"Yes milord, I want to service you" her eyes flashed once more and he let go of her chin to allow her to continue her work.

The young woman took a humid breath again and slithered both hands to the hem of his regal pants. And the Firelord lifted his legs only slightly enough for her to pull them off midway down his thighs.

She had been completely unprepared by its size though. There was a sharp thug that had fought her as she pulled his nether tunic down and the spring that raged only mere inches from her face calmed after only a bit. The air in her lungs stopped coursing for a moment, as it hitched in her throat.

Even as his underpants were long and comfortable, the spiral tower that had developed about it took much of the real state available. June could make out much of its elongated shape while it hugged him tenderly through it.

She once more took another moment to compose herself, gulped loudly, and placed her hand on the edge of his undergarment to slowly writhe it down. The very last piece of garment that stood ah,  _tall_ , against her. As the fabric reached the barrier of his organ's base, she brushed the pubic hair around it and lifted the cloth over his giant monster. She didn't think she could take another enticing springing flick while she was exposing him, without tearing the fabric off and jumping him like an uncontrollable harlot.

Not that she was unopposed to the idea, but she doubted the Firelord would take it kindly of her.

June swiped the underclothing in one swift move over his length, down to his family jewels and her mind contemplated if indeed the harlot in her healing heart had assassinated the good girl who waited patiently for her chocolate bar and milky nectar.

An automated beast began taking control and made her grip his prolonged, stiff,  _pulsating_  gland by its base only to lovingly press her nose, cheek and eye to the rest of it. Her entire face essentially shoved by her own will, captivated, enchanted.

An idol had risen before her very presence, and it spoke of redemption and warmth beyond her wildest, wet dreams. And she wanted to have its formidable shape etched in a gold-framed canvas within her mind for the rest of her life.

She sniffed his adoringly male scent right as she held him close before she licked every single skin packet and vein below his crown that her face could get a hold of. She lathered, moistened, befriended him with her mouth and tongue before she went to his tip.

The high-crowned covered overlord below her excited petal lips spoke to her, demanding that she release him and prepare him thoroughly. And June obediently and graciously abided by this most fairest of commands as her tongue slid right under the foreskin to free his wonderful glory to the world and present him as champion and master of her.

Zuko grunted while he took in the scene of her at work, he had been having a lot of trouble relaxing while she moved with an unknown expertise. A need exuberated from her, it was almost like she was completely transfixed, even fascinated by what she had before her. He had to ask himself, how in the world could this be her first time and be this damn good?

He had spent many nights in deep meditation and solitude to calm his mind for especially emotional moments. But even with this under his belt, no pun intended, it helped next to nothing to assuage him in intense situations. Zuko as he was, would find himself unsure of one thing or another. Life was a constant learning curve and he feared that sometimes he was losing himself or drifting off course.

June dove in and lovingly caressed the ring under his skin. She stopped only to take the lubricating smegma fetched into her mouth and savouring it before drinking. She did this several times more before taking her full lips and making out with the now overly wet, saliva stained tip. The deep kiss turned into her taking him entirely in her mouth and shortly after pumping him delicately with her left hand too.

"J-June" He growled as she pushed his foreskin to the frenulum, taking him in her mouth deeper within her cavity. Enjoying every single centimetre the invasion ripped through her.

"Guuh!"

Her tongue was all over him now, from the inside. The girl swirled his precious column in every single direction. She felt his gland grinding up against her uvula and then reach the end of her mouth before somewhat undulating.

June closed her eyes and hummed a tune her lusty brain could only fathom to remember.

"Hmmm, Mmmm" she eased her throat, and it opened on command. Drank every bit of his mass, experiencing a type of oral penetration that only left her thirsty for more. The tongue twisted up more, and lubricated him further to ease any tension that might remain.

And the Firelord exhaled out steam, literally, because the lithe, pale youth sheathed his weapon down her gullet so thoroughly it was hard to breathe, let alone concentrate. Eating him up, painfully slow, but pleasantly soothingly.

Once he was all the way in, Zuko shuddered and he knew his sex organ had released some viscous pre-liquid, while she was massaging and purring into him all the way.

June's hand stroked his upper tight, grazing his skin softly in an attempt to relax him further.

"Damn it" he panted heavily, he didn't want to lose himself just yet. But he could hardly fight against such excellent stimulation by such excellent womanly ministration. It was nothing short of majestic, he could not envision a better feeling whatsoever. At least, not yet.

The girl gulped him in more until she had his idol fully resting on her mouth and throat, to the brim, feeling him pulse and become impossibly wider. Her lips kissing the base of his rod and pubic hair. Then she took it upon herself to test the nasty things she had heard about other women do with their nightly companions at the bars.

She pulled out and pushed in, and did it again, and again.

And again.

And as many times and as fast as was needed to have him splatter her with love. An oral pleasuring that had her gagging at times but always enjoying the sensation.

Sometimes all the way to the tip, sometimes only to his ring and his frenulum, or sometimes keeping him halfway in, nice and tucked on her moistened bed. It really didn't matter, especially judging by the sudden gasps he was protruding.

And so, this was the taste of the Firelord of the Firenation, as he could no longer hold back anymore. When she cupped his richly filled sack, manipulating it generously while pumping him like a succubus in heat, he finally let go of a very large fraction of his frustration.

Instinctually, he gripped her head because every contraction that pulsated with every spurt was a feeling that he wanted to recollect for a very long time.

June took as much as she could, moaning before choking on his essence since there was so much. So much of his deluxe, delectable honey. Her eyes rolled and some seeped out of her nose and whatever part of her orifice that was not entirely filled by his massive cock.

She whimpered, begging for breath and the chance to properly savour the seed of hope he had graciously placed on her stomach for her to appreciate.

But the Firelord didn't let go until he was done dumping it all down her throat. The primal drive that arose within him told him to keep the femme fatale where she was because he knew that she should be enjoying everything that he was offering to her. The carnal, twisted image of having her greedy thirst quenched by his glutinous, viscous milk showed him that this girl  _wanted_  this.

And when he did let go, June took a wild, gurgling intake of breath before she spilt some on her chin.

Inside her laid the proof that he was willing to give to her what she desperately needed. Surely if he could down one hole, he could another, and then maybe another. June was not willing to cut any corners nor take anything for granted though, but she could hope and dreamed still.

The way he roughly gripped, even pulled her hair again, while he shot his warm nectar inside, forcing her to take it all was an excellent sign that she was doing rather well. Her pride and courage were blown up with the content expression on his face.

June nibbled her lips, scooping the white semen that got away, and taking the rest with slurping fingers. Sucking every last drop that she was aware was still left. She didn't need to comment on how rich and savoury it was as every sip that she swallowed was a drop of the elixir of life by itself to her.

But the previous prince of the firenation was not finished yet. After taking some much needed calming breaths, he was rising once more at the prurient sight before him.

He could hardly imagine that this temptress drinking her fill greedily before him was the same girl who had torn up the base of his ship with that dangerous beast, trying to find a man only a few years ago.

Well, he supposed that he could empathise with his uncle's subtle perverted gestures now. He had to hand it to him, the old geezer had a good, sharp eye for quality in the rough. His many years of experience did indeed count for the great beauty and delights in life.

June glanced his way sultrily and fluttered her lashes at him, some amount of composure returning to her after ravishing his member "Would my lord like another demonstration of my...abilities"

She didn't wait for an answer, however, as she began pawning and yanking his rapidly growing pole gently back and forth in a pumping animation with both hands.

And he found himself at a fuller mass in no time "I'm impressed" he grunted after a particular tug right under the base of his gland "show me more of what you can do"

The Firelord was indeed enchanted by her sensuous treatment towards his most delicate part. He would be lying to himself if he didn't want to be treated right again. After all, who knew how long he would have to wait for something like this to happen after tonight. Mai might do it, but he wasn't too sure she would be too inclined to the idea, considering her rather apathetic personally, she might actually be revolted at the mere insinuation instead of embracing it.

But for June, this was the answer she had been expecting. So she took her freshly rinsed melons on her hands and slid his throbbing rod right between the treacherous hollowed canyon between them.

She sat on her ass, feeling and hearing her nether vale squelched together at her arousal as it touched the metal floor, to get a better, more powerful leverage while snuggly cushioning him in. Then with one more suggestive look toward the Firelord above her, June claimed his poking crown with the one eye, into her wet mouth.

Zuko wouldn't have cared less if one of his men suddenly burst right in through the door for one stupid reason or another. He was being manhandled in the good kind of way and would not want to be disturbed from this blissful, erotic moment. It was once more hard to keep it together, even after letting go a short moment ago, June was making sure to be thorough in her work.

Her bodacious boobs pressed up against his lower stomach and her jowl encased his member's head once more as she massaged and gobbled vehemently. Both of her breasts caressed his elongation, just like both of her cheeks concaved impressively inwardly with each delectable swallowing slurp.

Words could not properly dissect the devotion in her glazing eyes or the devouring guzzling of his organ. Zuko's entire royal crown was being assimilated with an unknown, captivating pulling force. She took a swig of him, then a chug only to poke his one opening within his reddened staff with the very tip of her porous tongue.

Her spit lubricated him longingly and her tongue danced over and around him within her premises, this time more ferociously. The fact that she was grinding him with her softness added a new sensation of pleasure to mind which he would hope to recall posthumously.

It was nothing short of celestial the way she manipulated his sensitive manhood. June's twin pillowing was making him so hard already, any more kneading would surely make  _him_  lose his mind.

The amount of pampering he was receiving was maddening, he could almost not hear himself grunting in ecstasy as the erotic moans that escaped her heated throat filled his ears. June's hands became flushed the more she pumped him with her round tits at an inhuman pace, using careful but decisive fondling to assuage his penile gland.

He could feel her grip somewhat wobble every time her nipples grazed the bottom firm passage of his steel bronzed abdominal pack, while her entirely above average racks  _inadvertently_  pushed his shirt up. He took special notice the more this sexual display continued that June seemed to prefer to grind them right along the two chiselled stretch lines which connected his abs to his upper legs, in perfect harmonious strokes.

"Agni, if you keep this up, I'll-" His breath hitched but he managed to stifle a seriously unmanly moan with a tongue bite. It came only in short, choked reverberating grumbles. This girl, what was she doing to him now?

"Mmmm" was the only muffled response, the second after, leaning into him even more. Gleefully enjoying every palpable suction caused by her burning mouth around the over stimulated, overheated bludgeon of love.

Of course, the young woman under him was not lying when she said this was her first time doing these despicable acts of shameless, corrupting debauchery. But who could say no to the divine innate creative skills which lay hidden inside every person when enough incentive was applied, and inhibitions were thrown out the sea to be replaced only with the free desire of the most erotic kind. There were many things about her that she could not explain, especially recently. But if her adoration towards the man she was swallowing and taking while loving every second of it was less than complete and pure, she would suspect she would have pulled out from this lovely experience already.

This blackened queen of the hunt, however, had no such plans. She was focused, determined to have him claim her before the night was through. And every little bit of satisfaction that she brought upon his constricting being, for there was a lot of tension in him, would only help her cause more.

Besides, if her moaning full mouth, glistened sweaty skin, and irrigated tights had anything to berate her on, it was that she was in a forbidden world full of overwhelming, unrestricted euphoria. She was trapped in blissful rapture, encased in a sexual drive with the one man who could make all of her pain, her suffering go away. And because he had accepted her at her consistent, desperate insistence, willing,  _eager_  to show her that he and his beautiful shaft would make the nasty occurrences of her perverse older self, fade into time.

June shuddered after a particular depression of her inner cheeks at a lovely thought, and Zuko placed his hand on her head dutifully with another grunt. The butterflies in her stomach that had been fluttering rampant all this time, now mixed together with his love juice, all trickling down towards her cherry tree was not just because of a carnal, lust filled desire for him. They were the sure telltale signs of her developing feelings for this man, this benign  _god_  of fire and life. His tender  _warmth_  was contagious already, June was feeling more than cared or loved for, she was feeling  _in_  love for the first time ever. It was entirely different than anything she had ever experienced. And it just felt too right and good, a feeling perhaps comparable only to an inhale of fresh air, or distilled mountain water down her dry mouth. June could practically see herself free from the torment, to begin anew. With the Firelord. And her at his side.

She wanted to lavish him forever.

Zuko pulled her out with a sharp tug at her midnight curls off his engorged prong, he breathed high and loudly and she yelped somewhat at the sudden wrench.

"Anymore, and you'll suck the very life out of me"

The girl in question blinked a little but pressed her heaving hills of devotion together even more toward him, encasing him fully and smiled coyly. Her brain had only discerned this as a great compliment "It's alright my Firelord. I only want some of your essence, not your life"

Well, in a way, that was almost entirely true.

Zuko might as well not had heard right. They hadn't even started their copulation and he was out of breath already. But he understood a challenge had presented itself for him once again. This one, perhaps, even more difficult than the one he had undergone for four years of his young life, with a mark in his eye.

He was a man of resolve, and he might as well throw himself to the wolf-bats than be overpowered in this once more. He was going to prove to himself as well as to June that within him laid a dormant, fierce dragon ready to submit her to its will, ready to spew fire. Capable enough to more than hold itself and the sexual drive that emanated from this excellent huntress.

But the decision appeared to have been made for him again, as she took him in her mouth again. And a slight remembrance panged at the back of his mind about a certain girl on a certain day in his exile when his uncle agreed for him on a date.

June pushed her fist into her breast and stroked him succulently through them. He gave out a loud grunt and held her head to his red piece. And she was more than glad to take a lot more of him inside her.

He wanted the movement immortalised forever, and he knew that part of him frowned at him for even suggesting it. The moment he had agreed to this, he had lost all credibility with his loving girlfriend. Because he had allowed himself to be snared, and now he was forever tainted with another guilt he would surely feel coursing through his body when his mind settled to remind him that he was now a marked, unfaithful Firelord.

What scared him most, was that the loss of integrity could not matter to him any less, despite the other reprimanding him for it. He was succumbed, deeply sunken into this amazing sensational moment, and he did not want to get out yet.

The girl underneath him circled and swirled her alluring tongue around his glans in the open air, lapping him for a minute before once more diving in, with eyes closed in sole, complete concentration.

She was a succubus, a demon of lust and as such, she had completely assaulted him not with raw power, nor deception but with a gentle caress. She was singing a lullaby to the sleeping dragon who dreamed of a loving family to call his own, petting him instead of getting under its skin, like his sister had done.

She was softly promising ultimate gratifications instead of brooding dark lamentations. It was insane, but it was just what he needed.

How was he suppose to fight this? The answer was that he couldn't, he shouldn't. He was perfectly captivated.

His hips jerked once more upward, and the young maiden gulped him in at an ungodly tenacious ferocity. Clearly anticipating more sweet delights to harvest from him, and more than ready to receive it reverently.

The girl massaged her magnificent, appetising scrumptious fruits towards him even more, gauging him up and down, strangling his appendage until it all but submerged underneath them again.

This only proved to be the last straw in Jet's mouth before he cut it right off his meddling snout.

He pulled out at the last second and her transfixed bewilderment instantly magnified as his spurt squirted at a high velocity towards all that was June. And she would make sure to catch every last drop.

She had but a second to close her eyeshadow lids and open her now smudged messed lipstick lips even as she conferred her tits to him more submissively, to take in his volcanic, lava-induced glory. He was thorough in splotching his territory, but it was an entirely instinctual process for the young dragon to procure.

Zuko came down from bliss once more and he took it all in. June was covered, from frosted mountains of spongy elasticity to shadowed midnight strings of black and white marsh. Again, he was fascinated how she licked the remains off her like a pygmy-puma cleaning up from a bathing session. Spellbound as she took a finger and draped it over her slithering tongue.

It was indeed tasty, June could savour this delicious, nutritious delicacy for countless eons if she were immortal. Not that she had ever thought of being one before today that is, but the thought was appealing to her.

The Firelord decided that there was something captivating, indeed even grand, in seeing this woman suckle up his sperm like it was the last meal she'll ever have. And he wanted to make sure she understood this fact.

"I like how you don't let any go to waste" He said, still slightly dazed from his previous reverie.

June stopped licking her wrist for a moment upon hearing this and looked up at him.

Then he took her cheek in one of his palms and caressed her ever so gently, like he had done when they first started all of this "It's a nice gesture June, and I like it a lot"

Perhaps if she were the type, she would have been embarrassed by the sincere compliment. In truth, she was to a small degree, but more so than that, she was enthralled by it.

Since the beginning, June had loved everything he had to physically offer to her on her hour of need. Yet, these simple, even subtle act of kind commendations the firelord bequeathed to her and only her, when she was most vulnerable, when she was most susceptible, words just couldn't describe it. The butterflies within her went wilder and filled her heart to a springing geyser, with admiration and even devotion. The wonderful feeling he provided in these, if it even possible, was something that would break her mind if she pondered it in any analytical sense.

Maybe there were just some things in life, that weren't meant to be just thoughts, but feelings.

Was this love? Yes it had to be. June had never felt it before, but it was the most beautiful sensation she had ever felt.

Her demure smile returned to her features again, as she gazed longingly at him, and the former prince of a nation gone rogue found himself transfixed by her awesome, fascinating beauty in that moment. He was ashamed to admit it to himself, but there was no denying it any longer after seeing it twice in one night.

This girl, this young woman had the fairest smile he had ever had the privilege of witnessing. Even his girlfriend, Mai.

It alone left him speechless, never mind the abrupt recognition. If possible, it was even more charming than the last one, when this had all started. Majestic, even divine in its purest form. Firelord Zuko felt like he was the first man on the face of the earth to have a first-class seat to utter, celestial grace.

June was a radiant goddess in disguise, there were simply no other words to describe it.

"Incredible…"

"Thank you  _mi_ lord"

The Firelord made her feel loved whenever he did or said things like this, and this realisation dawning to her was just too much for her to bear to herself. June felt beautiful to him, adored, accepted, powerful to an extent that was both uniquely fulfilling and gratifying.

His approving gaze was now something that she thirsted for as much as his touch. She wanted him to love her as much as she was falling head over heels, completely.

"But I'm only like this because it is you"

And she had no idea why she blurted out how she really wanted him to then and there.

Maybe it was because he had finally taken full control of her heart hereafter.

"Please tell me you want me more"

And he had no idea why he blurted out how much he really did crave for this stunning woman.

Maybe it was because she had finally ensorceled him with that sunny smile.

"I want you"

Yet these in themselves are thoughts that became senseless to a pair of beings that were, in the end, more than just flesh and bone. For once or twice, the human race, capable of plenty terrifying, wicked, and malicious activity is also proficient in notions of benevolence, grace, and compassion.

An idea starts with an inspiration, which itself is commenced from a previous idea. And the spirit guides truth to the light from that idea. But some things that don't start with a good idea, those that are not guided to truth, these end in misery, despair, and even death. Man's thoughts are not prone to believe if this idea is either, but he is always willing to accept it nevertheless.

So the thoughts arise. Yet for every thought that blooms into existence, an idea is planted for the next. And thus, the spirit guides once more the hearts of men into endless opportunities. Be they gracious, or less so, the hearts of men are always what decides where an idea will go.

And in the end, even thoughts won't understand where they came from. Because even thoughts die out.

But the hearts of men, those remain. They understand, that an idea starts with an inspiration.

June was surprised when the Firelord of the Firenation seized her jowl tenderly into his smoldering fingers, and captured her red, damp lips in the most primrose, sensuous, wild burning ride yet. It left her completely breathless. He was a furnace and she was a ready to be melted dough under his hand, loving every single moment of it.

She closed her eyes after her initial awe just to feel the sensation in its most basic form not only in her lips but in its entire actuality.

June was travelling past the midnight sky, across constellations and lone stars at an unknown speed towards something, that she had no idea what or how far it was. Though she found that she didn't care what the destination was, in fact, she didn't want to arrive, ever.

The bliss of the moment was  _all_  that mattered. Him, her, and his lips on her, forever. If she could put a  _thought_  about this sensation, it was that she was stuck in an everlasting, interstellar dance with Zuko.

The very  _idea_  that she was floating didn't even occur to her anymore, June was connected to him in a way that was unparalleled to anything she had before.

Strangely enough, as soon as it was there, it was gone too as he pulled away, and yet it took him speaking to her to get her off her total trance.

"Alright, I think it's time" he said.

"…huh?" she replied stupefied still.

Zuko noted the glazed eyes and raised chin and couldn't help but smile to himself at how dazed she seemed to be after that one particular kiss. If she was absolutely angelic when she smiled, she was positively adorable with that expression. Which now that he thought of it, was very un-June like.

However, considering she was fully naked before him and some parts of her were still stained in his liquid essence, he guessed it wasn't such an innocent thing to begin with.

Instead of answering her though, he gestured to his bed with a head nod. Hoping that she was still sensible enough to get the idea. This was all happening because she wanted this to begin with, after all, it would be a shame indeed if they didn't get going already.

The young huntress eyes widened for a second when he shook his head in that direction, and it finally appeared to have dawned on her what was about to happen.

' _Yes, at last!'_

Lithe obedient girl in her gave out one last hurrah before she was ultimately replaced with that insatiable tigress in heat.

She smiled dutifully yet again, Zuko's heart skipped one or two beats, before the old shattered, sanguinary girl who lusted for the blood of her prey above all else climbed on his bed, and assumed a position that before this oddest of night, would have never in her craziest dreams take.

Once in his bed, that was it. June had now nestled into the young man's private territory, and in the wild, that signal exclusively meant she was seeking one thing from a willing male.

Laying on her stomach, June pushed her upper body up from the pillow to look back at him and recoiled her left leg closer to her ribs, as one would when crouching. Only this movement, had a very specific objective.

She grinned wickedly, then ever so subtly, thrust her assets back and forth slowly in his direction. Grinding the bed sheet as she did, and spilling onto it like it was the earth's most unadulterated, comfortable silk ever made.

Her rosebud clenching and unclenching from the slutty gesture. Closing as she pulled in, and widening ever so coyly when she pushed back.

Zuko grumbled from behind her at the clear coercion tactic before he settled close enough to place both of his boiling paws where any man who's about to partake in such an act of both luscious hedonism and tender passion would undoubtedly situate.

But he be damned indeed if he was to allow this amiable, scandalous posterior and these squirming, excellent child bearing hips get the better of him.

Therefore, he took the opportunity to instruct them and her, once more, some proper manners. And the ramifications of captivating a red-blooded Firelord with such an exhibition that was quite literally impossible to discount, could not simply go unpunished either.

He raised on palm and slapped one of them for it. Like a father would his offspring for doing unacceptable things. Then he did so again, and once more for good measure.

Flaunting her ass like that at him. Releasing abundant amounts of incense his way. What did she expect? What else could she have expected?

"Naaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!"

The surprised squeal that escaped her throat was delightful. Then a small chirp and finally a moan. It may be that he was being too lenient, or was still enthralled by her overwhelming beauty.

He looked further down the road and noticed her head weave, perhaps stunned as well as intrigued.

Ah the things this raving temptress did to him. The young Firelord would have never thought of doing any of this at, well, hand. It proved somewhat interesting, were all women capable of bringing out this side of a man? Or was he just this way when the opportunity arose because he was Firelord?

As he pondered this for just a few seconds, he unconsciously had begun to gently massage the one flushing area of fat and muscle he had just assaulted not too long ago.

June loved every instant of it. This was like ointment on a wound. Or better yet, like cold water to a brand.

The image of the Firelord imprinting, stamping his territory brought floods of excitement to her lower midsection. And it was exactly what she was looking for.

This was him implanting scorching fire and coal on her, and then stirring, rising her up with the same fiery fervour.

A sign that he was doing this not just out of frustrating pity for her, but because he really did want her. She wanted this to manifest itself immediately after his declaration. No delays were acceptable at this point, she was far too gone in ecstasy and love to consider otherwise.

Just as June decided she wanted to gaze back at him, Zuko stopped his gentle treatment to remove his upper tunic off him. It was getting insensibly hot at this point, even for him, so he removed it, leaving him completely nude to her.

Sweat covered from head to toe, glistening in the dim lantern lid room, with a sinewy thorax and abdominal muscle sequence that would leave the men she'd seen shirtless entirely to shame. Knees on the bed, with that giant, hardened, vein covered phallus, which would be the one catalyst to shatter her reality into a new one, standing proudly and fully engorged. With its high crown, delectably close to his toned lower stomach. Ready to inject her at a moment's notice.

Mmmm, yes. It looked positively strong from this angle, like all of him did. Ready to impale her for  _hours_  on end. And bring in endless amounts of pleasure in that time to her hollowed caverns.

The thought alone was enough to rattle her into a delirium of fantasies.

Zuko glanced down and readied himself into position. Admittedly, to what he believed was a good posture in a situation like this. That is, with his member intimately close to her sopping snatch.

From what small information he could gather about things such as these, and what little he understood about them, at least before tonight, he supposed they were as fittingly ready as they ever would be. He was painfully hard as steel, and she was irrigated more than enough, perhaps even more so.

However, in the interest of providence, since she was supposedly a virgin and he didn't want to hurt her, he tested the waters again.

His fingers made their way into her, stretching her labia as far apart as he dared, and pushed in little by little. Exploring her with a finer detail than when he first inserted his extremity within her. Taking careful note of her texture, the liquid that seeped out in small gushes, and the undulations that her love canal contorted the deeper he invaded the premises.

He had to hold her down with his other hand on her hip or else the sudden seizure at his stroking her most private confines would cause him to inadvertently hurt her.

Or rather, her hymen, what he was searching for.

"HAAAAAAAHHH! Nooooooo!"

"Calm down June, just give me a moment. I want to know how far I have to go before-"

"Y-you're simmering meeee!"

Zuko looked up suddenly alarmed that he really was hurting her. Thought the spasming contractions he was feelings, deep inside her, her gyrating hips, and stupefied features told him otherwise.

Suddenly, her tongue stuck out, her eyes rolled up and she convulsed violently before exploding into his entire arm. Squelch after squelch she ejaculated incredible amounts of clear, musky liquid.

The Firelord would have pulled out to inspect what he had, apparently, done. But he noticed, rather late to his shame, that her absolutely tight innards were keeping both of his fingers in place. Far too late to let go now.

"Yeeaahh! I love it!" June cried out in ecstasy, as he held her up with his other hand by her hip.

She was shipped into her otherworldly experiment all over again. The moment he began rubbing her, it was game over for what little remained of her self-control. Particularly when he kneaded something inside her that made her go insane.

Her mind went blank at that moment.

She took a few breaths to calm down, but yet again felt him stirring her up.

Any more of this, and she would be all body, and no brain. Because she was certain it would short circuit at any time now.

"Please…a…minute longer. I-I can't" She breathed out in a raspy voice.

As eager as she was to have him fuck her brains out, it was only figuratively. She'd rather be conscious when he finally took her. It was all that she wanted. To feel him in, and she couldn't do that if she was passed out, dreaming about it.

Zuko sighed behind her but complied. Agni only knew what she was going through right now. It was a bit awkward though, with his fingers in her, and the underside of his arm drenched in womanly hormonal fluids.

Then again he had done the same to her in a way, so it probably wasn't that strange.

"Uhh…June? Are you alright?" He asked concerned. The continuous heavy breathing was beginning to worry him a little

"Um…no? I-I mean, yes! I'm heavenly Firelord" It took the broody girl a bit to realise what he meant. Maybe part of her cerebral cortex had actually taken a hit.

He raised an eyebrow at that but instead settled to let it go. After all, anyone who could shriek in pleasure like that couldn't possibly be hurt. Maybe addled, he mused, but not damaged.

Still though, just to be sure, he took his other arms off her slim waist and pulled his other fingers from her snatch quickly in case he was bruising her. June winced at the suddenness of it all and ventured to glance back at him.

What he did next had her face steam up in absolute embarrassment. The little girl inside wanted to hide away forever. And yet the tigress mewled at the boldness in which he manhandled her.

Zuko lifted her derriere upwards toward his eye level and stretched her pussy lips extremely wide open, so that he could peek inside it. For some extraordinary reason, he got the simplistic idea that he should check if he did indeed, literally, burned her interiors. Considering how she behaved thus far to his meddling touch, it seemed like a fair thing to do.

As he was doing this, June would have fainted right there and then if  _that_  part of her didn't find this promiscuous activity so unbearable erotic. Far more lewd than anything he had done to her before.

He opened her up more and got even closer, pulling her up so much that her backbone ended up arching. She had to hold her head with both her hands, but alas, he didn't see the typical symptoms that would be associated with even a third-degree burn.

And he would know what a scorch mark would look like, and not just because he was a firebender by natural selection.

But it was viscous, porous, somewhat dark and clenching from time to time, trying meekly to resist his fingers. A magenta in tint, and looking as sensitive as when he had first, ah, hand, sampled it. He also documented, aside from her exhilarating sweat, that the intoxicating fluids which kept her moist was coming from two contracting holes on the sides of her honey pot. Which were constantly excreting and bombarding that fragrance, and that had so much driven the beast inside him absolutely mad, towards his nostrils. At the end, he noticed the semitransparent barrier of flesh weaved partially into her vaginal walls, and assumed that that was her membrane.

Yes, the one thing that unequivocally stated to him she was as pure physically as the day she was born. A virgin maiden, unspoilt and untouched until this very night.

"Mmmm...mmmm...mmmm!" June couldn't help her shaky legs. There truly wasn't anything else he hadn't seen now, all that remained was for him to take her. And by the great gods, the tension was killing her.

The Firelord blinked, breaking his concentration to look her way and see her panting in short gasps, all the while trembling erratically. Her face was flushed like never before and she lost all deviousness in her facial features.

So Zuko settled her down to her previous position, and finally, handled the crowned head of his dick in line with her soon to be infringed slit.

He made first contact at her doorstep.

"I'll go slow at first, but let me know if I'm hurting you, and I'll gladly stop" He declared. Lord he may be, but there was only so much he could take any more from this juicy, indecent body. He now knew he wasn't burning her unintentionally with his bending, and how far her inner membrane was so he was more prepared. But there was no doubt in his mind, he was going to piston away the second she felt comfortable around all that was him. Nothing was going to stop him.

She had only to say the word.

"Do it  _mi_ lord! Please! Wash the sorrow from off my filthy skin!"

This was the moment June, now beyond recall, was waiting for. She didn't care if he dove right in and split her in half with that immense piece of appetizing masculine rod. June had known pain in her life of all kinds. Compared to those, what he was about to do was nothing short of a breath of life.

A breath of love.

Only a crack in her reality remained, and he could shatter it all away. He  _had_  to. And yet that demon hand cringed in the darkest corners of her remembrances, as it attempted to snare her by the healing throat, for one last time.

June's eyes widened, her paradise deteriorating.

' _NO!'_

And as Zuko slowly, agonisingly, slid himself into her tight opening, she skewered herself into his full mass right to his pelvic bone, breaking her, in a way that that stupid little homeless beggar, or bloodthirsty animalistic predator, could  _never_  hope to understand.

If her heart could speak words, they would not be in the tongue of men. But there needn't be words said when two beings become one. Or when she knew she was dancing into the night with him all over again.

For a moment, everything was flawless. After the initial explosion jostled her, the young outcast from society was a beacon of pure light, uncontaminated, ironically, by the carnal depravities of a realm pervaded with malevolence. Because the only one who could save her was at her side.

This connection brought a persistence, a blissful peace marked into her desolated, forgotten spirit. She felt it engraving her very heart. This chain did not bound her to the ground like a slave to malice, it did not seek to torture her with endless grief, nor taunt her with the ghost of her failures.

It was a chain that bound her to this chivalrous man, and it was beyond anything comprehensible.

Yet she did not blackout into vertigo because he kept her upright and conscious.

"Ngh!" Zuko clenched his mouth and eyes.

What in the world was this? His male organ was on fire. Was this what a man experienced when he first had sex? Perhaps this was the blood of her hymen coating him.

"Damn it June…guh! What did you do that for?"

"…."

The Firelord took a couple of fuller intakes of breath to calm himself down. She was unbelievably tight, and he definitely felt her rupture upon his singular skiving.

When he opened his eyes to venture her way, he found her shuddering from head to toe, but otherwise unmoving.

Speechless.

The other thing the lord of fire saw after a few more seconds was her gooey blood, mixed together with her nectar slowly descending down her inner thighs, right into his red bedsheet.

Contrary to belief, June had not become deaf. She had just experienced one of those once in a lifetime moments. So it did take some time for her motor functions to jumpstart.

That and a receding ringing on her right ear.

"Agh!" The firelord inhaled tightly to calm down before speaking.

"Are you alright...?"

She sighed contently, and replied with a, if possible, far more sensuous chord "… Mmm, sorry, did you say something?"

As soon as she turned, Zuko might as well have had her unconscious again anyway. Her tongue was sticking out,  _again,_ her cheeks where an arbitrarily, sickening flush of pure, inflamed red and her eyelids were half opened while her pupils were half mooned.

He was starting to think that he was a terrible,  _terrible_  influence on her now, and that this was all a mistake. As much as he loved seeing her enjoying herself so thoroughly with him, at this point, it was ridiculous.

He really didn't want to think what having hot, wild sex would do to her overall health now. As much as it  _pained_  him to say it, he couldn't do it if she was reacting this way.

And he really did not want to put her on comatose for having sex. Besides not being able to forgive himself for it, how can he possibly face anyone back home when people found out she was lethargic because the Firelord boned her.

Oh Agni, and Mai!

"Listen, as much as I hate to say this, I think we should stop" He flinched out.

"Mmmm?" Still unresponsive.

He scratched the back of his head and looked away "I mean, it's not that I'm not looking forward to it. But look at you"

"…."

"It's like you're about to get a really bad fever. I don't know what's going on with you, but I'd much rather you stay in bed and recover after what happened earlier"

"Mmmm…hah!"

"Maybe this was a bad idea after all, have you considered that? We do have a medicine man on the ship you know. Wait…"

"Hah!"

"Hey? What happened to the medicine man?"

"Wha.."

It was at this point that Zuko himself thought that he had taken what little sanity remained in this midnight woman, and not just her virginity. If so, he was going to hate himself for a very, very long time. So, in accordance with common sense, which apparently dictated that he first end all bodily exertion, he slipped his still rigid manhood off her gaping cavity, where it had nestled comfortably throughout this ordeal.

But this proved to be a critical mistake.

"What! No! What are you doing?! Don't!" June's eyes went wide in less than an instant as she begun to push her bum against his rod.

This didn't end too well at first for the young man, as gravity did indeed reign king of the night, and he lost his balance and fell backwards on his bed. With his cock deeply sheathed to the hilt on her.

"Yeees!" She mewled.

The Firelod though, was conflicted "awk...argh!"

"Give it to me! Haaaa!"

Zuko lifted his neck in time to see two pairs of porcelain ass cheeks impatiently doing short work of his lower body. He was in total shock at what he was experiencing.

He groaned loudly and she moaned teasingly. She ploughed  _him_ rapidly, and going quicker by the second.

Sitting on and facing away from him, it was yet another new sensation to her. She wriggled her pelvis with a thrust downwards, hauling up, only to jam herself better, faster, deeper.

Already Zuko felt like he was about to release his sperm, but he couldn't just yet. He had to do something.

"Ahhhh, yes! Take me"

June sat upright on her ass after a fluttering of her petals gave him the opportunity to finally react.

He took his chance, and with an almost inhuman strength, lifted himself and her by his extremities, and pushed her back to her previous position. All the while, she gushed out her lascivious liquids into his upper tights and legs.

He grabbed her arms and pulled her back towards him as he penetrated her willingly this time.

She cried in pleasure.

And the restless firebending dragon within him roared to life.

"That's it! You want to be taken June? Fine! But don't say I didn't warn you after this" He reached in further than ever before, until his tip felt like it reached yet another barrier, but this one with a small opening.

The second he touched it, June howled in euphoria.

" _Now_ , I'm gong to  _fuck_ you until I'm  _deeply_  engraved inside of you!"

He yanked himself out, only to stab into her  _even_ farther. His entire crowned idol now prodding right at her cervical entryway, demanding admittance at once.

"You will  _never ever_  be satisfied with anything else but me!"

June felt her spine shiver as chills coated, and traveled from her neck, down to her tailbone. She was in love.

"Maaaaaaaaaooooooohhhh yeeeaaahhh! Do me  _mi_ lord!Do meeeeeee!"

The Firelord's eyes palpitated on their sockets, fangs sprang out of his gums as his relentless, sexual onslaught took a tangible, life of its own.

He was now at a fuller mass, bigger and wider than ever. Stretching her as hard as she was constricting him. Within, the dragon roared as it slithered to take control of his mind and body. Zuko let him do it. To guide him through this uncharted territory. And to release into this willing female every one of his bottomless frustrations once and for all.

All these months of unresolved and unappreciated meetings, gone in one night.

He raged forward, clenching his teeth, burrowing himself even deeper. Drilling into her innards as nature intended of him to. June's cervix opening had no chance, and it gave out to his monstrous treatment.

The red-blooded dragon master pulled out and perforated her to the brim again, taking her arms with him, and savouring the sweat on her obscure hair as it reached his face.

Yes, she was going to take it all.

This continued until she was completely under his reptilian domain, entrapped within his enthralled walls of seduction. Never to see the light of day unless he permitted it.

Zuko clamored and pulled one long, creamy, glittered leg over his shoulder. He fucked her mercilessly like this, almost always penetrating her cervix and greeting her uterus, hidden deep inwards.

His ruthless impaling of her was what she had asked for, and it was exactly what she was getting.

June keened to her last breaths all the way as time passed by. Her windpipes hurt from the over exertion but she refused to let it rest. She started to wheeze every so often, and she would have writhed in place a lot more if he hadn't been holding on to her.

The man full of life-giving flame remorselessly tortured her throughout the night. Chomping onto her fair, velvety skin; fondling and pinching her breast and nipples to oblivion; pulling her hair from her scalp as he pummeled her reddening entrance to his gird; swatting her rear end viciously to soreness, and assailing her clit to a hideous, turgid bead.

She came so much that her vagina was numb from the nonstop pleasure of his unrelenting, continuous assault.

But he had yet to release inside of her.

" _Mi_ lord, I want it here...in my womb!"

The Firelord didn't say anything but shifted their positions so that she was on her back and spread eagle as he pumped her with renewed vitality.

"Please! Mark my insides…ahhh!" she pleaded, almost completely exhausted.

The words spoke to him, but he was an insatiable beast at his core. A living, breathing, firebending dragon at the peak of his youth.

He was going to regale this opportunity to the very end.

Alas though, everyone had their limits, even great beasts cannot last forever.

"Please...to feel in your warmth! To feel it deep inside me...maaahhhh! Haaa that is all I want, please!" She was so desperate, she would have blubbered anything to have him spilling.

The smeared makeup on her lips and eyes couldn't look worst on her by now, but the dragon king couldn't have cared less.

He scooped her up to his eye level, and took her lips in a passionate kiss as he came inside.

June felt a ray of spurt after spurt hit her hard and in long strokes. His cum slamming directly onto her welcoming uterine cavity. And it was everything and so much,  _much_  more than what the courtesans at the bars described in detail. His seed was now planted in her garden.

The butterflies hovered above it. She would nourish it, and he would be its sun.

She bit on his lips when he grunted his release over her mouth, and then screamed his name wilts clutching to his back with all four of her appendages stuck on his back as the consummating reached its climax.

They fell to the firenation mat in a loud heap.

June gave a satisfied, serene sigh, and Zuko passed out from the sheer fatigue of his wild, sexual marathon.

The world of the unconscious soon overtook her as well, but she was not afraid of it bringing bad memories ever again.

* * *

Morning soon arrived into the small firenation metal frigate, and with it, the clanking and bustling of sailors and soldiers alike on deck as preparations were made for anchoring.

The great, once firenation settlement of Firefly city was at eyes reach starboard right. Pass the canopy, due east as true as the sun rose.

Whistles blew, charcoal burned stronger, the engine rattled with more strain, and Nyla, the great pet shirshu woke up with a mighty, toothy yawn next to large wooden crates.

It reached into the fresh sea air for a very specific scent, and once it caught it, its ears stood up. Creaking its throat and scratching its sensitive nose with a front paw.

Love was in the air.

For it only took one night of passion for it to become incredibly apparent, that what transpired down below deck, in one very specific room, was anything but chaste affairs.

The Firelord grunted awake with the sun beating on his face directly, and the first thing he noticed was that his head throbbed so bad, a gallon of firewisky couldn't rival it.

His nose twitched while he inhaled the early day air. At least it seemed to be a pleasant perfume that tickled it. Cranberries? No, it was more like Jasmine flower, but why was it so strong?

Zuko darted his tired eyes open in one go, to notice a lovely young cream skinned woman with startling dark strands of hair entwined and ruffled all over his and her face. Soundlessly sleeping, as tranquil as an undisturbed glacier on the north pole during the winter season. With but mere centimetres separating them.

He breathed out after savouring her essence for one more moment before untangling himself as best he could, getting up and walking to his wardrobe. Carefully not waking her.

Hearing the men up top was all the confirmation that he needed to know that they were very close to their destination.

He pulled his final tunic on and turned around just in time to see her stirring awake.

The girl sat up and looked for him after scratching her head, but couldn't find him until he spoke from the other side of the bed where he was.

"Good morning June" He tied on his chest armour plating.

When June found where his voice was coming from, she tilted his way and rewarded him with that deific smile that left him ogling.

"My Firelord, good morning"

Though it was clear that neither of them had gotten much sleep, June felt more alive and radiant than ever in her life. She felt like she had reached an inner peace that rivalled what those damn nomadic gurus preached of.

She sighed and began to fix her hair bangs off her face with her fingers, trying to tie her hair to no avail. Where was that hair clip?

When the Firelord hadn't said anything but continued to gaze oddly at her, June stared back at him worriedly.

"Is something wrong?"

Zuko snapped out of his musing to realise he was once more enchanted by her.

"No, sorry. I didn't mean to stare" He went back to placing his armor.

But June was still as astute as ever "Does my body still please you Firelord Zuko?"

She leaned forward on his bed on all four and cupped one of her breast close to her mouth.

"Are you not finished ravaging me? Why don't you come closer and take care of me again then?" It seemed to him like she was back to her old teasing, sardonic self again. He didn't find this too much surprising, but what he did and said next, she would find enigmatically sexy.

He took the necessary steps towards this sublime enchantress and forcefully gripped her jowl to face up to him. Then with the other arm, swiftly dragged her entire naked body by her petite, slender waist right up against him at the edge of the bed.

June gave a short yelp.

He might be tired, and maybe a little grumpy, but two can play that prurient game.

"If, when or how I do you in anyway" He closed in the same distance as when he woke up next to her.

"Will be up to my sole discretion, is that clear?" His eyes flared red dragon flame and June was frozen in place upon gazing at it.

Her pupils expanded at the ferocity within, but soon it was gone.

"Well?"

"Yes  _mi_ lord. Whenever you want"

He let go of her chin abruptly as he went back to his closet to finish up with changing. More bluffing, but it seemed to do the trick with her at least. Judging by the increasing ruckus upstairs, they would probably be disembarking any minute now, and their business together would finally be over.

In reality, she and he had nothing else to do with each other after he made sure she was paid.

"Listen, it looks like we'll set anchor soon, so get ready. The Firenation's national bank branch in Firefly city is pass the marketplace. We can reach it quickly if we take your shirshu since it's the fastest animal on board"

For some reason, June had not realised up until he just brought it up that her whole reason for being here, to begin with, was because she was being recompensed. What would happen to them after?

June's eyelids fell to her knuckles on her tights, where she had placed them after he had let go of her.

The recognition that they would be separated for an instant, after such a passion filled lovemaking night, upset her chest deeply.

She had to say something. But she couldn't. What could she say? That there was something between them? That she was ready to be by his side for all eternity?

That she loved him?

Last night made it clear, and nothing in the world would ever be the same to her.

Her eyes teared up as she heard him finishing up getting ready and walking away.

This was it, now or never.

"Wait  _mi_ lord, you must know that after last night, I think I lo-"

He turned around, giving her a toothy grin and interrupted her as if a  _thought_  had just occurred to him "What do you say I buy you breakfast on shore first though? I know a really good place that sells some pretty good marine food. We can discuss what happened in there. You must be hungry right?"

June's heart melted then and there. Her extraordinary smile returning to reel him in. She wouldn't say it, but that sounded a lot like a date to her.

"Yeah, that sounds great, I would love to have food right now…with you"

"Good, I'll see you on deck…June"

The Firelord opened his door, closed it once he was on the other side, and released a gigantic sigh. The massive reality of what he had done the night before settling upon him at last.

He gripped his pounding scarred scalp with his left hand.

What was he doing? Was he ready to let her go? Or not? And if not, then what? Ask her to be his girlfriend after only one night? Instead of Mai?

Blow everything he worked so hard to achieve with her for  _years_  to smithereens, for a gut feeling?

No. This wasn't just a gut feeling. It was more.

"I need fresh air"

A very wise old man once told him, that a troubled mind is always more easily assuaged when he could breathe better.

And damn did he really need that right now.

He took off to the main hallway, and up the stairs were his men awaited his orders.

But inside, June sat on the bed massaging her lower belly directly were her womb was, as she subconsciously hummed a low lullaby she thought she made up in her dreams; when she imagined her mother rocking her back and forth in her arms on particularly sad days of her young childhood.

The peace within her returning. A daunting calm that quelled her darkest fears, and crushed any future insecurity that may arise.

She was June, the stupid little homeless bloodthirsty bounty hunter beggar girl no longer.

No, she wanted to be June, the richly fruitful woman, who could give love to her children in the way she had never been given to until last night.

Because it was such a beautiful thing to share. She would be foolish to waste it and not treasure it.

A  _thought_  popped into her head.

' _Yasuko, that's a nice name'_

* * *

And so it was that in this light, a new path was forged. Long forgotten no longer, as brilliant, shifting destinies unite. To be purified by unbiased love, and give hope to the flickering few, who needed it most.

Because love changes everything.

The rest, well, perhaps that's a story for another time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story is part of a two-shot I worked on and thus is technically completed. However, I might be inclined to write a shorter epilogue that includes Mai and a few other characters if enough interest is shown.


End file.
